Geoscience
Preliminary Exploration Database for Platinum Group Elements (PGE) in Manitoba
PGE Report Home
Introduction
Release Information
Viewing the Report
PGE Index Map
Analytical Data
Data Sources
Black Shales
References
Metal Prices
Rock Samples
Treatment of the Data
Acknowledgments
Introduction
This is a preliminary release of an exploration database for platinum-group elements in Manitoba. It provides a compilation of geological and geochemical data for many mafic and ultramafic intrusions in Manitoba that will aid in exploration for platinum-group elements (PGE). The database is focused on mafic and ultramafic intrusions, because all the currently identified major PGE deposits in the world are hosted by these types of intrusions. It also includes new PGE data for black shales in Manitoba. Over the past 20 years, shale-hosted polymetallic deposits have been gaining recognition in both the research and exploration communities as a potential, future source of economic PGE mineralization (e.g., Nick deposit, Yukon Territory; Hulbert et al., 1992).
We have provided information for most of the major (>100 m thick or 1 km long) mafic and ultramafic intrusions exposed at the surface. In addition, data are given for selected ultramafic intrusions (derived from Hulbert and Scoates, 2000) intersected by drilling but not exposed at the surface. For many of the ultramafic rock localities, individual locations are grouped geographically; for example, all the ultramafic rocks on Ponask Lake are given as a single record, as are all the ultramafic intrusions in the Thompson Nickel Belt.
For a more detailed breakdown of ultramafic rock localities and Ni-Cu occurrences in the Province, the reader is referred to a database of Ni-Cu ± PGE occurrences and mafic and ultramafic intrusions in Manitoba that is concurrently being co-released by the Geological Survey of Canada and the Manitoba Geological Survey (Hulbert and Scoates, 2000). The Hulbert and Scoates (2000) database provided an effective starting point for this report with most of our documentation for ultramafic occurrences in Manitoba based on records contained in their database.
In effect, the two databases are complementary, with the current report focussed on providing data specifically supporting PGE exploration, and the Hulbert and Scoates (2000) database being focussed principally on magmatic Ni-Cu sulphide occurrences and related geological and exploration documentation.
