SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES 2015 © 2015 by Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office. All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2015. This publication is also available, free of charge, as colour digital files in Adobe Acrobat® PDF format from the Canada- Nunavut Geoscience Office website: www.cngo.ca/ Every reasonable effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this report, but Natural Resources Canada does not assume any liability for errors that may occur. Source references are included in the report and users should verify critical information. When using information from this publication in other publications or presentations, due acknowledgment should be given to Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office. The recommended reference is included on the title page of each paper. The com- plete volume should be referenced as follows: Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office (2015): Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office Summary of Activities 2015; Canada- Nunavut Geoscience Office, 208 p. ISSN 2291-1235 Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office Summary of Activities (Print) ISSN 2291-1243 Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office Summary of Activities (Online) Front cover photo: Sean Noble overlooking a glacially eroded valley, standing among middle Paleoproterozoic age psam- mitic metasedimentary rocks, nine kilometres west of Chidliak Bay, southern Baffin Island. Photo by Dustin Liikane, Carleton University. Back cover photo: Iqaluit International Airport under rehabilitation and expansion; the Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Of- fice, Geological Survey of Canada (Natural Resources Canada), Centre d’études nordiques (Université Laval) and Trans- port Canada contributed to a better understanding of permafrost conditions to support the planned repairs and adapt the in- frastructure to new climatic conditions. Photo by Tommy Tremblay, Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office. ii Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office Foreword I am pleased to introduce the 2015 volume of the Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office (CNGO) Summary of Activities.This is the fourth annual edition of a publication that summarizes both preliminary and final results from projects supported by the CNGO, as well as invited key-research papers from our partners and collaborators. This release is a first-time experience for me, as the new Chief Geologist. During my past 12 years of northern living, I have nevertheless been involved closely with the CNGO and the Summaries of Activities through my work with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) and the Government of Nunavut (GN). I am now the fourth Chief Ge- ologist for this tiny, yet industrious office, the first being David Scott (1999–2003), the second being Donald James (2004– 2010) and the third being David Mate (2011–2014). David Mate was the originator, and now strong supporter, of the Summary of Activities volumes, while exceptional editorial guidance has been provided by Celine Gilbert—who incidentally has been with the CNGO from its inception in 1999. I look forward to continuing with the releases of this valuable contribution. David Mate put it succinctly last year when he said “each contribution has demonstrated the breadth and quality of research being conducted by the office and its collabora- tors.” By the timely release of observations and data through this publication, we are collectively providing valuable, peer- reviewed information to governments, organizations and industry stakeholders across Nunavut. We feel that the release of this quality geoscience research and dissemination of information are paramount to help land-use decisions and manage- ment in Nunavut. Also, individual contributions from previous issues received many citations on a yearly basis, pointing to a lively interest from the scientific community. When Nunavut became a territory in 1999, more than 70% of it was inadequately mapped and its geology was poorly under- stood. Informed decisions about land-use planning or exploration could not be made in many cases. To address these defi- ciencies, the decision was made in 1999 by the federal and territorial governments to open the Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office. The rationale for the office included spearheading and improving geological research in Nunavut, and helping to co- ordinate research efforts by geoscientists within the various governments. The CNGO is co-funded by two federal departments, namely NRCan and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC; formerly Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada), and the Government of Nunavut, Economic Develop- ment and Transportation (GN-EDT). The office is managed with input from a Management Board made up of representa- tives from NRCan, INAC, GN-EDT and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (the latter organization ex officio). The CNGO’s mandate is to 1) develop capacity in geoscience, 2) maintain an accessible geoscience knowledge base, 3) pro- mote sustainable development of Nunavut’s mineral and energy resources, and 4) increase awareness of the importance of Earth science for Nunavummiut. To accomplish this mission, the CNGO provides mapping, reports and interpretations on the geological features and resources of Nunavut. In collaboration with an array of geoscience partners, the CNGO aims at engaging the public on key geoscience issues. The CNGO operates on annual contributions from the funding partners and conducts core-mandate research using Strategic Investments in Northern Economic Development (SINED) funding from CanNor. All work that the CNGO undertakes is conducted collaboratively and in partnerships with other government departments, academia and the general public. Part- nered geoscience initiatives were also conducted in 2015 under the second phase of NRCan’s Geo-Mapping for Energy and Minerals (GEM-2) program. The office currently consists of six employees and one postdoctoral Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council geoscientist, with expertise in Precambrian, Paleozoic and Quaternary geology, GIS and online geoscience-data dissemination. In 2014, the CNGO received approval for a new two-year geoscience program focused on delivering activities that support responsible natural-resource development, protect investments in infrastructure and disseminate geoscience information. These activities, funded by CanNor under SINED, continued in 2015. Activities focused on three key themes: 1) geoscience for responsible natural-resource development, 2) geoscience for protecting investments in infrastructure and 3) geoscience- data dissemination and public outreach. The latter included a third successful year of the Northern Geoscience Training Program between the CNGO and Dalhousie University. The CNGO Summary of Activities 2015 volume presents preliminary results and continues to take advantage of the CNGO Geoscience Data Series as the means for disseminating several new digital datasets that support papers in the volume. Summary of Activities 2015 iii Where appropriate, this series will be referenced in the Summary of Activities papers, with links provided to the online re- pository. This year’s volume contains 18 papers, grouped into the following sections: ‘Mineral deposit studies’, ‘Regional geoscience’, ‘Geoscience for infrastructure’, ‘Aggregate and industrial minerals’, ‘Carving stone’ and ‘Outreach and ca- pacity building’. All papers are available for download at www.cngo.ca. The ‘Mineral deposit studies’ section contains three papers. The first paper reports on an assessment of exposed sedimen- tary rocks of the Elu Basin in the Kitikmeot region to determine the potential for commodities such as uranium, copper, lead and zinc. The second and third papers are both subjects of M.Sc. studies on rocks of southern Baffin Island. The second pa- per focuses on the distribution, composition and petrogenesis of granitic pegmatites on Hall Peninsula for the purpose of evaluating their metallogenic potential. The third paper provides observations on a suite of mafic, ultramafic and layered mafic-ultramafic sills that occur on Meta Incognita Peninsula. The results will be used to constrain existing regional tec- tonic models of middle Paleoproterozoic extension in the eastern Trans-Hudson Orogen. Nine papers in the ‘Regional geoscience’section are focused on observations and results from two main areas: 1) southern Baffin Island and 2) western Hudson Bay. All of these projects involve work conducted under SINED programming and new work conducted in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Canada under GEM-2. The focus of these activities is on bedrock and surficial mapping and a range of thematic studies from Hall Peninsula and Meta Incognita Peninsula for south Baffin, and the Tehery Lake–Wager Bay area of western Hudson Bay. New results include bedrock mapping, remote predictive mapping, geochronology, till geochemistry and information about the aeromagnetic survey that was flown over ground north of Iqaluit. This year’s ‘Geoscience for infrastructure’ section highlights two papers, the first one providing an overview of surficial- geology mapping and compilation in the western Hudson Bay area. The second paper presents results from an ongoing multidisciplinary study conducted in collaboration with NRCan and Université Laval, detailing the results from perma- frost-oriented research in Iqaluit. The ‘Aggregate and industrial minerals’section comprises continuing work by the CNGO on the resource potential for in- dustrial, high-calcium limestone on Southampton Island, a project that has involved