Abitibi Mine Site and Core Shack Visit
The Ottawa Carleton Universities Society of Economic Geologists (OCUSEG) student chapter recently organized an Abitibi mine site and core shack field trip. This trip gave students ranging from 1st year to the graduate level a look at a day in the life of a geologist in the Canadian mining and mineral exploration industry.
The trip began with a drive up to Val d’Or from Ottawa for a tour of the Probe Gold core shack facility. Students were given an excellent overview of the steps and stages of a junior mineral exploration project. Elements of the tour included explanations of greenfield exploration tactics, drill targeting, core logging and cutting, and finally 3D modelling of drill data in Leapfrog. Students also got to see beautiful examples of drill core and high-Au intersects containing visible gold (VG).
Day two of the trip was an underground tour of the LZ5 zone at Agnico Eagle’s Laronde-Penna complex. This involved a guided underground tour of various mineralized showings, explanations of the complex logistics of operating an underground mine, and a great discussion afterward with the geology team.
Special thanks to Dylan Cochrane at Probe Gold and Marc-André Mercier at Agnico Eagle for hosting the group.
