-Data useful for mineral exploration
A PROJECT to map the geology and geo-diversity of a hitherto unexplored section of the rainforest on the Guyana/Brazil border is currently under way.
The Brazil/Guyana Border Geological and Geo-diversity Mapping project involves geologists from Guyana and Brazil whose aim is to correlate the geological makeup of the Guyana side of the border with that of Brazil so as to unify the updated information on a newly-produced map of South America.
The Guyanese team, comprising four geologists, left for the border community of Lethem last Monday. Shortly before their departure, team leader and consulting geologist
of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), Dr. Serge Nadeau, disclosed that the project had been agreed on by President Bharrat Jagdeo and then President of Brazil,
Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva, at a meeting in Georgetown in 2009.
Other GGGMC geologists who are part of the expedition are Mr. Jimmy Reece, senior geologist; and Messrs. Randy Ault and Deokumar Lachman.
This field project involves investigative work on remote areas at the Guyana/Suriname/
Brazil tripartite junction to the east, and the Guyana/Venezuela/Brazil tripartite junction to the west, along the 1000-kilometre border area, and is expected to last for six weeks.
“We and the Brazilians will be mapping and agreeing on the geological features on both sides,” Nadeau said. “There are, too, several areas where the Brazilians have identified rocks on their side that are not in Guyana. We will be checking by going in the fields to see the extent of these geological units and their chemistry and composition.”
The  data collected will enable the participating geologists to complete a map showing the variety of geological elements, including rocks, minerals, soils, rivers and creeks, faults (cracks in the earth’s surface)  and landscapes in that pristine area, and depicting their  age and  tectonic evolution over time.
Another objective is to compile information about areas of the border where people have been mining gold and diamonds, with the aim of determining the mineral potential of those areas, digitize that information, and determine whether those zones extend across the border.
Nadeau said that in addition to being useful, this information will prove vital for mineral exploration, and important for environmental studies and health issues.
Although the quantity and quality of individual chemical elements on the ground
there at the moment are not important, Nadeau said, it is always useful to compile such a record, because people are moving around in the interior and around the border, and it is important to know the levels of the chemical properties of metals in the area, since some metals are potentially toxic at elevated levels.
Guyana will benefit from information on the age of the granitic rocks through age-dating mechanisms — which information is currently unavailable — and a much more informed and global view of the physical material of the earth in the ‘deep-south’ area.
Rock samples collected will be sent for chemical analysis at laboratories in Canada, and for age dating at laboratories in China.
Dr. Nadeau said it is hoped that the team will be able to present a final report and map to representatives of both the Guyana and Brazilian Governments by May of next year.