Mineral exploration is a very costly part of the mining industry. With no guarantee that anything of commercial value will be found by the prospectors sent out into the
field, tens of thousands, or even millions of dollars, may be spent with no return. In truly remote regions, where the costs of sending those prospectors out is substantially higher, this can be
a serious detriment to thorough investigation of the area's mineral potential.
To combat this problem, Greenland has an annual "mineral hunt" called Ujarassiorit. Ujarassiorit is a Greenlandic word meaning "go and look for rocks." The program was
initiated in 1989 to actively involve the people of Greenland in some aspects of exploration work, and at the same time to create a postive attitude towards the mining industry. As well, it assists
in the government's efforts to define the economic mineral potential of the country.
The government puts up prize money each year to encourage the collection of mineral samples that may be of economic value. Only permanent residents of Greenland can compete
for that prize money, which in 1998 had 25,000 DKK (about $3,500 US) as the top prize.
The samples are sent, along with documentation about the samples and the exact location found, to the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum in
Nuuk. The annual haul is nearly 1,000 samples, and from these the most promising (usually about 30%) are selected for chemical analysis.
An important aspect of Ujarassiorit is that many of the samples come from areas in which there has been little formal exploration work conducted. Even apart from the economic
mineral aspect, such samples have provided important geological knowledge about these areas.
In 1997, the first prize went to a person who sent in a sample of massive sulphides from the Paleoproterozoic Julianehåb Batholith of South Greenland. That sample assayed
3.4% copper, 0.12% molybdenum, 35 ppm silver and 0.1 ppm gold (100 ppm = 0.1%).
In 1998, sulphur-bearing quartzite from the Paleoproterozoic metasediments of Kobberminebugt in South Greenland won the top prize. Gold-bearing samples from the Uummannaq and Nuuk
districts of West Greenland took the next two prizes.
Until 1995, Ujarassiorit was administered by Nunaoil, with results published in Danish. For the past four years, the Government of Greenland has organized it, and reports are now
available in English as well.
Could programs such as Ujarassiorit be useful in other jurisdictions? Nunavut strikes me as being the perfect jurisdiction to give it a try.
To
Arctic & Northern Mining Links
This article is largely reproduced from This is Greenland '99. That material, and the 'prospector' graphic from the same source, are
used with the permission of the publishers.
