Regions: South Slave Region
Tags: physical sciences, geology, seismology
| Principal Investigator: | Eaton, David (2) |
| Licence Number: | 13037 |
| Organization: | University of Western Ontario |
| Licensed Year(s): |
1999
1996
|
| Issued: | Apr 20, 1999 |
| Project Team: | Greg Clark, Sandrine Sage |
Objective(s): The Great Slave Lake shear zone is an ancient fault zone, nearly 2 billion years old, that played an important role in the geological assembly of the North American continent. Much later, but still in the distant geological past, fluids in this fault zone carried valuable minerals to the surface forming the Pine Point lead-zinc deposit. The shear zone trends northeast and passes south of Great Slave Lake crossing Hwy 5 north of Wood Buffalo National Park. Although this fault zone is not presently active, recent technological developments allow scientists to use passive recordings of distant earthquakes to map its internal structure to depths of 100s of km. Using these methods, this project will help to develop an understanding of the Great Slave Lake shear zone as well as improve the application of novel geophysical imaging techniques.
Project Description: The goal of this study is to use advanced passive telesiesmic equipment to map the geological feature known as the Great Slave Lake shear zone. The planned geophysical survey will use between 9 and 15 instrument sites spaced 10 km apart and situated close to Hwy 5 between Hay River and the northern part of Wood Buffalo National Park. Each site will consist of solar panels, a buried seismometer, and a steel enclosure (about 1m x 0.8m x 0.5m) with batteries and recording equipment inside. Sites will be selected about 100m from the road to reduce traffic noise and visibility. The equipment will be set up during May and revisited every 4-6 weeks to download data. Upon completion of the project, all equipment will be removed and each site restored to its natural state.
