Seaweed and slope sediment prospecting, Mârmorilik area central West Greenland

Abstract

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.