Aircraft are flying back and forth across the regional district collecting geological information in a survey conducted by Geoscience BC, building a catalog of information for a publicly available online resource.
Their aircraft are using the Burns Lake airport as a central base in the project.
Bruce Madu with Geoscience BC says it’s a needle in a haystack considering the size and scope of the land.
“This is about flying back and forth with a plane and getting sense as to what the bedrock looks like. You can detect magnetic signatures in this aircraft, and that can give you a better idea as to what the rock looks like,” says Madu.
He says most of the land in the valley has been surveyed at one time, but with new technology it’s due for an update.
“It’s the vintage of that data that begs for modernizing. When we flew some of the parts of the Terrace area it wasn’t done since the 1960’s. And the Smithers area hasn’t been done since the 1990s, 1980s.”
He says they surveyed up to the rail tracks in Smithers last year.
The information collected will help make land use determinations as well as pinpointing possible future exploration.
“I’ts going to help municipal governments and regional district governments understand where there are better areas of potential that (could) lead to better land use determinations.”
without divulging the specifics, He says it’s about a 2.5 million dollar investment that’s publicly funded. The results should be available sometime this January.
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