Junior mining companies hunt for PGMs.

The hunt for platinum group metals (PGMs) accounts for much of prospecting activity taking place across the province right now, the president of the Ontario Prospectors Association (OPA) says.

Garry Clark says many of today's junior exploration companies are searching high and low for the next big platinum/palladium find. North American Palladium's Lac Des lies mine in northwestern Ontario is currently Canada's only primary producer of palladium, and once a major $208 million. expansion at the mine is completed later this year, annual palladium production will triple to 250,000 ounces, or five per cent of the world's annual palladium supply, by 2002.

The demand for palladium and PGMs is at an all-time high. The world price has increased steadily since 1998, making it very profitable to mine.

Palladium is used in a variety of industries, such as electronics (computer, cellular phones, fax machines) and dentistry. But the largest and fasting growing application is in the production of automobile catalytic converters, which help to reduce emissions that are harmful to the environment.

"Right now the platinum/palladium exploration is focused around Thunder Bay near North American Palladium and around the Sudbury area," Clark says.

"That's principally where it is, though there is quite a bit of exploration going on in the Hemlo area, too."

The search for diamonds. in the Wawa area has also had a big impact on prospecting, Clarks adds.

But whether prospectors are looking for palladium, diamonds, gold or nickel, Clark says today's prospectors are constantly facing new challenges, especially in the form of new techniques and technologies.

James Patterson, the vice-president of exploration for Crowflight Minerals Inc., says the expense of exploration work continues to be an issue as exploration is taken to deeper depths.

"It's getting more expensive because you're drilling deeper," Patterson says. "We've drilled our deepest hole to about 1,200 metres. To try to keep those straight or within reason, so they don't wander all over the place, is one of our biggest challenges."

But, he adds, improvements in drilling technology have significantly advanced prospecting by giving exploration companies more control over their drill holes.

Crowflight Minerals Inc. is currently conducting geophysical and diamond drilling programs on the Worthington offset dyke in the Sudbury. Basin, just 1.7 kilometres from where Inco Ltd. recently, made three new nickel-copper discoveries with high-grade platinum/palladium values on its Totten mine property.

"People don't really realize how much platinum and palladium has come out of Sudbury," Patterson says. "The deposits on the offset dykes, like the Totten, Kelly Lake and the Copper Cliff offset, have got maybe a two to three times higher. platinum/palladium content than the average Sudbury ore."

He says there are numerous junior exploration companies flocking to the Sudbury basin area in hopes of finding Platinum/palladium.

"There are a lot of junior companies that are exploring quite aggressively there, so we're confident that one of us is going to come up with something. That'll really spark things."

Both OPA and MNDM are participants in this year's Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada annual conference in Toronto, March 11-14. The conference attracts world players in exploration and development, government and geology, investment and finances, and industry leaders.