The Search II project was designed to:
Although this area had been the focus of Geoscience BC’s QUEST-West project in 2008, regional magnetic surveying had not been conducted on some portions of the Search area since the 1960s.
The Search Phase II area is home to the former Bell-Granisle porphyry copper-gold mines and the idled Endako mine, one of the largest molybdenum mines in North America. Just beyond the survey’s border is the proposed Blackwater gold mine to the south and the Huckleberry copper mine to the southwest.
The project area is directly adjacent to similar airborne magnetic surveys conducted through Geoscience BC’s Search Phase I and TREK projects and overlaps airborne electromagnetic and gravity surveys conducted through Geoscience BC’s QUEST-West project.
The survey covered a 24,000 km2 area – more than double the size of Jamaica – extending north to Pathway Lake and south to Ootsa Lake and east-west from Fort Fraser to Smithers.
The survey was flown by Ottawa-based Sander Geophysics Ltd. Three Cessna aircraft were flown along parallel lines spaced 250 m apart, to provide more precise data about the region’s geology than was previously available.
The aircraft were equipped with sensitive magnetometers, which recorded local disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field that are caused by magnetic minerals in the upper regions of the Earth’s crust.
Data packages and maps of the results were released to the public for mineral explorers to use and pursue further. The survey did pick up some geological anomalies that may indicate the potential for undiscovered copper, silver, and molybdenum deposits.