Dr. Jim Ryan
Vancouver Office
Geological Survey of Canada - Pacific

The Boothia Peninsula Integrated Geoscience Project is a multi-year project in the Boothia mainland area of Nunavut, located in the north-central Rae domain of the Churchill Province. It is jointly funded under ESS's Northern Resources Development program, the Polar Continental Shelf Project, and the Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office. Phase 1 of fieldwork in 2005 focused on the southern portion of Boothia Mainland, and phase 2 of fieldwork intended to be completed in 2007. An aeromagnetic survey of the area (the first publicly available for the region) was released for in April 2005. It comprises 101,000 line kilometers, flown at a spacing of 400 m and 150 m elevation, and is available for FREE download on the GSC's Geoscience Data Repository. In advance of field work, a comprehensive Remote Predictive Map (RPM) of the region was produced, which assisted in developing a more strategic approach to bedrock mapping, thus making time in the field more efficient. This approach allowed the crew to cover an area of more than 15,000 km2, at a scale of 1:250 000, in about 40 days. The project also implemented a new map-based digital data capture platform (Arcpad on a pocket-PC); a revolution in field data collection for large field parties. There are downsides to this modern technology, but the pros far outweigh the cons. The geoscience knowledge base in Canada's far north is deficient relative to the rest of the country; however, the desire to explore there for major commodities like diamonds and precious metals, and new sources of energy continues to grow. Field seasons in the far north are inherently short, and fieldwork is very expensive. Thus, innovative applications of remotely sensed data and digital technologies are a must for overcoming the deficiency in a timely manner.