Hoidas Lake | |
---|---|
Location | Northern Saskatchewan Administration District |
Coordinates | 59°55′41″N 107°49′12″W / 59.928°N 107.820°W |
Basin countries | Canada |
Hoidas Lake is a remote northern lake in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. [1] It is about 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Uranium City. Named in honor of Irvin Frank Hoidas, a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot officer killed in action during the Second World War when his Stirling W-7520 crashed near the Belgian town of Sint-Truiden, [2] [3] [4] it is the site of Canada's most advanced rare-earth element (REE) mining project. [5]
Hoidas Lake lies in the Northern Rae Geological Province, in the general vicinity of many of Saskatchewan's large uranium mines. [5]
The mineralogy of the Hoidas Lake rare-earth deposit differs from most other such deposits in that it is hosted in veins of apatite and allanite. [6] Hoidas Lake also differs from other deposits in that it contains a significant amount of heavy rare-earth elements, such as dysprosium. [5] This abundance of heavy REEs is significant, as there is a growing demand for the heavier rare earths in high-tech manufacturing (such as the use of dysprosium in the manufacturing of hybrid car components). [7] [8] Mineralization is presumably hydrothermal, from an alkali or carbonatitic source at depth. [9]
The main prospective zone is composed of two dominant rock types: a variably deformed monzogranite and a granodioritic to tonalitic gneiss. Both are Paleoproterozoic to Archean in age. [10]
Ongoing work at Hoidas Lake has delineated a vein system (known as the JAK zone), which extends for at least a kilometer along the strike. [9] The limits of the system have not been established along the strike nor along the dip, [9] and the zone's total extension is therefore unknown. The resource zone averages 75 m in width [11] and is composed of individual veins which, though ranging from one to eleven meters in thickness, average about three meters each. [9] Veins are continuous to 300 m depth and follow an anastomosing (branching) geometry. [9]
Estimates of the resource, given current delineations and assuming a 1.5% total rare-earth cutoff, have established a presence of at least 286,000 tonnes of rare-earth ore, [12] which is enough to supply more than 10% of the North American market for the foreseeable future.
The Hoidas Lake claims are owned by Great Western Minerals Group, based in Saskatoon. [5]