Lake in Saskatchewan, 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]
Setting
Hoidas Lake lies in the Northern Rae Geological Province, in the general vicinity of many of Saskatchewan's large uranium mines.[5]
Mineralogy
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]
Resource scale
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.
Ownership
The Hoidas Lake claims are owned by Great Western Minerals Group, based in Saskatoon.[5]
