Digital seismics for mineral exploration

A project announced in mid-July with HudBay Minerals in the Flin Flon area of Manitoba, is one of the latest in a series of jobs taken on by the Calgary exploration technology and service company Kinetex Inc., a subsidiary of Vancouver-based FirstGrowth Capital Inc. For six years Kinetics has been developing advanced exploration techniques, starting with the oil and gas industry, and then moving into uranium exploration in the Athabasca basin of Saskatchewan in 2003, and more recently the diamond and precious and base metal sectors.

One of its primary services is the VectorSeis” recording system and digital three-component full wave imaging, developed and manufactured by Input Output. The results of this surface-based technology can see more than 3 km deep, with fewer sensors and therefore less setup time and fewer field personnel than traditional analog seismics. It is less environmentally invasive. As well, it can measure P waves more accurately, and two types of S waves, using double the frequency (140 Hz).

The new agreement with HudBay is an extension to Kinetex’s February 2007 agreement with the Geological Survey of Canada for its Targeted Geoscience Initiative 3. The new project includes subsurface testing below the Flin Flon area and its mines. The work, which is to be completed in early August, will provide a combined 12 million traces of high resolution 3C, long-offset 2D and 3D seismic data to assist in the identification and correlation of previous exploration and development efforts.

Kinetex also signed a late-July agreement with a subsidiary of Coalcorp to assist in a coal exploration and development project in Colombia, with activities to commence in Q3 2007. Further information about the company and its technology is available at www.firstgrowthcapital.ca.