Driving exploration.

There are no mine headframes around Sault Ste. Marie, but surging mineral commodity prices haven't left the Algoma district in no-man's land.

More than a few juniors and prospectors are sniffing around the granite rock hills north of the city from Mamainse Point on Lake Superior across the Algoma highlands and east toward a resurgent Elliot Lake uranium camp.

Mike Hailstone, the Ontario Geological Survey's resident geologist, says exploration activity, both grass roots and more in-depth, has never been busier.

"This is a banner year. We're hitting all kinds of records."

There are 10 active exploration projects underway in the district with two drills turning.

During an average year, private exploration spending averages between $1.5 million and $2 million. Those levels should easily be surpassed by year's end with as much as $8 million invested.

Pele Mountain Resources, a Toronto-based junior, is spending $5.5 million alone on its Elliot Lake uranium property. The company just released a scoping study outlining a scenario for developing a mine that would produce 826,000 pounds of U308 annually at a cash operating cost of $55.51 US per pound for 18 years.

The Sault and district has had a history of operating mines dating back more than a century The mines of the Algoma Ore Division in Wawa fed iron ore to Algoma Steel's blast furnaces until its closure in 1998. The steelmaker even ran its own mineral exploration division searching the area for ore deposits.

There were also multiple pocket-sized deposits and short-lasting mines including copper producers such as the Tribag and Coppermine north of Batchawana Bay on Lake Superior. Both closed in the early 1970s when commodity prices tanked.

No doubt, Hailstone says, the Algoma district is under-explored since there's all kinds of favourable geology But there hasn't been any kind of full-scale regional exploration program since the 1970s.

In recent years, logging has opened up areas for prospecting. But much of the best ground is privately owned, purchased from the former Algoma Central Railway who were granted mineral rights a century ago.

The biggest focus of exploration is for iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) mineralization from Batchawana Bay to Wakamota Lake, north of Thessalon on Highway 129.

"This is very favourable ground," says Hailstone. "But much of it is in the hands of private individuals," including groups like the Algoma Timberlakes Corporation.

Still, companies have been staking ground north of the Sault in unorganized townships around Island, Achigan and Ranger Lakes.

In the last five years, Falconbridge, BHP Billiton, Intrepid Minerals and Nikos Exploration had bought into the idea that it's a good place to look for IOCG deposits.

Starfire Minerals has staked and flown airborne surveys in the Theono Point area of Lake Superior, the site of Canada's first known uranium occurrence.

Amador Gold was drilling and sampling on a large un-mined breccia near the former Tribag Mine which produced 1.25 million tonnes of ore grading two per cent copper.

Carina Energy has a large package of ground north of Elliot Lake searching for IOCG mineralization and Vault Minerals are drilling for lead-zinc values in the Percy Lake area.

Diamonds have also been in play. There's been airborne surveys, ground geophysics and drilling in the Foleyet, Ranger Lake and Chapleau by Southern Era Resources and Canabrava Diamond Corporation. But Hailstone says diamond companies are very secretive about their findings and no assessment work was filed with the Ontario Geological Survey (OGS).

One of Ontario's largest landholders is a group of companies led by Richard Hughes of Hastings Management in Vancouver. The Hastings group oversees a basket of Canadian juniors, some with ground around old copper properties north of Iron Bridge. Together, it holds about 500 claim units of Crown land in the district.

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Hailstone says there's plenty of deals afoot between these private landowners and West Coast investors.

"What we're seeing is suddenly minerals are back being the darling of investors because of high zinc and copper prices."

But despite the age of the rock ranging between 1 billion and 2.2 billion years old with some complex rift formations, there's never been a full-blown geoscience initiative as seen in the Timmins-Kirkland Lake area, Lake Nipigon region and more recently, Atikokan.

Local prospectors have lobbied for a proposal called the Superior East Geoscience Initiative calling for a geological remapping of Mamainse Point and the Batchawana Greenstone Belt.

It was an attempt to invite funding from government and industry.

"There are still areas that have not been mapped in over 30 years," says Delio Tortosa, vice-president of the Sault & District Prospectors Association. The proposal focused on mapping the eastern shore of Superior from the Sault to Wawa using the whole range of the latest technologies.

But nothing ever materialized.

He attributes that to a lack of staffing and funding at the OGS regional office in Sudbury, which does mapping for the North.

"They're the foundation on which discovery by private sector has been made."

Tortosa says a survey would provide better understanding of the geological models to guide juniors and prospectors toward discovery of new mineral deposits.

The area's only producers are the River Gold Mine near Wawa and a traprock quarry run by R.W Thomlinson at Bruce Mines on Lake Huron's North Channel. About one million tonnes of the rust-coloured industrial stone is shipped annually by freighter to the U.S. for use as railway ballast or for making asphalt for super highways.

"I don't see why we can't have another producer in the area because of the high value of the commodities," says Tortosa, "You're getting a lot of old timers in their mid 70s out there prospecting."

www.mndm.gov.on.ca/MNDM

Ministry of Northern

Development and Mines

http://hosting.soonet.ca/eliris/sdpa/sdpa.htm (Sault & District Prospectors Association

By IAN ROSS

Northern Ontario Business