Hoidas Lake
Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hoidas Lake is a small, remote northern lake in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.[1][2] It is about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) south of the Saskatchewan–Northwest Territories border and 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Uranium City in the Tazin River watershed.[3] Named in honour 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,[4][5] it is the site of Canada's most advanced rare-earth element (REE) mining project.[6]
| Hoidas Lake | |
|---|---|
  Hoidas Lake Location in Saskatchewan  Hoidas Lake Hoidas Lake (Canada) | |
| Location | Northern Administration District, Saskatchewan |
| Coordinates | 59.928°N 107.820°W |
| Part of | Mackenzie River drainage basin |
| Basin countries | Canada |
| Max. length | 3.7 km (2.3 mi) |
Surface area | 180.5 ha (446 acres) |
Shore length1 | 11 km (6.8 mi) |
Surface elevation | 451 m (1,480 ft) |
| Settlements | None |
| 1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure. | |
Setting
Hoidas Lake lies in the Northern Rae Geological Province, in the general vicinity of many of Saskatchewan's large uranium mines.
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.[7] Hoidas Lake also differs from other deposits in that it contains a significant amount of heavy rare-earth elements, such as dysprosium. 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).[8][9] Mineralization is presumably hydrothermal, from an alkali or carbonatitic source at depth.[10]
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.[11]
Resource scale
Ongoing work at Hoidas Lake has delineated a vein system (known as the JAK zone), which extends for at least a kilometre along the strike.[10] The limits of the system have not been established along the strike nor along the dip,[10] and the zone's total extension is therefore unknown. The resource zone averages 75 m in width[12] and is composed of individual veins which, though ranging from one to eleven metres in thickness, average about three metres each.[10] Veins are continuous to 300 m depth and follow an anastomosing (branching) geometry.[10]
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, 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.