In 1975 and 1977 field investigations of various possibIe commercial mineral deposits in North-West Greenland were carried out, with particular emphasis on an evaluation of the ilmenite-bearing beach sands. The earliest known notice of these was in 1916 when Lauge Koch sampled 'jærnsand' at 'Itivdlerk', which was found to be high-grade ilmenite sand (Ghisler & Thomsen, 1973). The location of 'Itivdlerk' is uncertain, but it may be the embayment Iterdlak 14 km east of Moriussaq, where black sands were found in our work. Various GGU reports have described the ilmenite sands and other possibIe commercial minerals (Ghisler & Thomsen, 1971, 1972, 1973; Dawes, 1975, 1976a, personal communications). The general geology of the area, and location of the principal prospects investigated are shown in Fig. 6. Analyses and evaluation of the samples and surveys are not yet complete, and the present conclusions are thus tentative.
This work was to prospect for base metal deposits by geochemical analysis of the metal content in seaweed and in slope sediments. Previous sampling (Bollingberg, 1975; Vandkvalitetsinstituttet, 1972; Grønlands Fiskeriundersøgelser et al. 1974; GGU et al. 1975, 1976) showed that lead and zinc in seaweed (Fucus vesiculosis, F. distichus) near the mill tailings outlet and mining in the Mârmorilik area had increased from a few parts per million to 100+ ppm Pb and 200+ ppm Zn. The Mårmorilik area is particularly suitable for such prospecting because three Pb-Zn deposits - Sorte Engel, Agpat, and Uvkusigssat - afford known controls for testing metal variation in the seaweed and sediments. It was hoped that new metal deposits might be localised by their presumably similar anomalous geochemical response in seaweed and sediments. The locations of the samples are shown in fig. 8, together with the cold extraction analyses of the sediments. The seaweed has not yet been analysed.
A prospecting method used in 1975 in Greenland and reported briefly on here measures the total cold extractable amount of seven heavy metals, Zn, Pb, Cu, Co, Ni, Sn and Ag. The primary aim of the method is to discover and outline metal anomalies but not to determine their metal content accurateIy. Once an anomaly is targeted this can be done by more detailed foIlow-up surveys. The two areas chosen to test the suitability of the method to Greenland conditions, were the lead-zinc mining district of Mesters Vig on the east coast and the Sorte Engel (Black Angel) mine at MârmoriIik on the west coast. The traverses run show strong anomalies over kriown veins (figs 37 & 38, AA' & CC'; fig. 39, GG' & HH'), as well as indicatingpreviously unknown mineralisation (fig. 38, BB'; the western anomaly in fig. 39, HH').
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