The time-domain electromagnetic (TDEM) system can identify the conductive black shales that stymied previous exploration attempts. Courtesy of Beauce Gold Fields.

Montreal-based Beauce Gold Fields is using a time-domain electromagnetic (TDEM) system developed in Russia to find the hard rock source of the Beauce placer gold deposits in southern Quebec.

The company hopes that by separating out induced polarization (IP) and conductivity measurements, the high-resolution system will be able to see past the conductive black shales – commonly mistaken for sulphides – that have stymied previous geophysical attempts to detect the source of the gold in the Gilbert River Valley near St-Simones-les-Mines, about 100 km south of Quebec City.