The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) has released a digital compilation of diamond exploration data from companies' geological reporting to Greenland's Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum (BMP). Although the reporting covers exploration over a period of more than thirty years, the vast majority of the data have been gathered and reported during the past eight years. The compilation contains data from all company assessment reports that are no longer confidential, and also includes GEUS data relevant to diamond exploration.
The purpose of the present digital compilation on DVD is to provide an overview of available company and Survey data to the mining industry to assist in the selection of future diamond exploration targets, highlighting Greenland's position as part of the Archaean North American craton.
The compilation contains scanned text and maps, and selected digital data from company assessment reports submitted to the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum in fulfilment of the standard terms for exploration licences. Reports that are no longer confidential are presented on the DVD as Adobe PDF documents. Most of the scanned reports are delivered complete with large maps and appendices. Tabular data have been extracted from the reports and are compiled in MS Excel spreadsheets, MS Access 2000 tables and ArcView GIS shapefiles. Extensive use of hyperlinks provides easy navigation between the data and the reports from which were extracted. The content of the DVD also includes a very comprehensive list of references, including both papers and reports.
The data include mineral analyses of heavy minerals recovered from till samples, dyke and boulder distribution maps, geophysical surveys, results of diamond testing of mini-bulk sampled dykes, drill logs, etc. An overview of existing and available geophysical data of relevance to diamond exploration in West Greenland is provided as GIS maps, and in the Excel and Access tables.
The GIS presentation of the data is best explored and manipulated using the commercial ArcView GIS 3.3 software from ESRI, but is also provided in a version for ESRI's freeware GIS viewer ArcExplorer 4 (included on the DVD).
The report including DVD is available from GEUS (geus@geus.dk) at a price of DKK 700 (= USD 100) exclusive of postage.
S. M. Jensen, M. Lind, T. M. Rasmussen, F. Schjøth & K. Secher 2003: Diamond exploration data from West Greenland. Danmarks og Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse Rapport 2003/21, 50 pages + 1 DVD.
Contact:
Senior Researcher Sven Monrad Jensen
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)
Phone (direct) +45 38 14 22 12
E-mail: smj@geus.dk