Exploration techniques to be developed.

• Author: ROSS, IAN

Developing innovative mining exploration techniques and methods to look under the North's geological blanket of rocks and clay is the focus of a hew $8 million mineral exploration program.

With the stroke of a pen, Dan Newman, Northern Development and Mines minister, launched Ontario's Mineral Exploration Technologies (OMET) program on April 17 at the Northeastern Ontario Mineral Symposium in Sudbury.

The four-year program is geared to provide research dollars for the best project ideas put forward by recognized research groups and the mineral industry and their partners.

Connected with the program is Laurentian University in Sudbury and the university's Mineral Exploration Research Centre which entered into an administrative partnership with the Ontario Geological Survey.

Newman says the work supported by OMET should increase Ontario's global competitive advantage by introducing more cost-effective methods for the mineral industry to develop mines in the province. About $2.5 million will be made available for the 2002-03-fiscal year.

The OMET program is housed on the Laurentian campus at the Willet Green Miller building, home of the Ontario Geological Survey and a world-class facility of mineral and mines research.

Since the program was first announced last fall, 167 potential clients have expressed interest in...