This first EXTECH project area was selected for a number of reasons. From the socio- economic standpoint, it represented a highly productive base metal district, which urgently required the discovery of new reserves to forestall mine closures and the resulting loss of employment. From the scientific standpoint, it possessed the right combination of abundant outcrop, complex glacial stratigraphy, and well-documented mineral occurrences for the multidisciplinary studies that were envisioned. From the operational stand-point, the project would build upon the excellent working relationships that already existed among the Geological Survey of Canada, the Manitoba Geological Services Branch, and the exploration companies active in the area.

This was in many respects a pilot project with both strengths and weaknesses. It was strongly multidisciplinary and benefited from a significant degree of integration in both the planning and execution of the research. With the close integration of the efforts of the federal and provincial geological surveys, each side brought its particular expertise to bear on the problem. Although EXTECH 1 perhaps fell short of full integration of all components, a GIS was built and much of the data were analysed spatially. This volume contains many insights that could stimulate new approaches to massive sulphide exploration and contribute to the discovery of new resources.

A number of impacts resulted from EXTECH I:

• The Photo Lake VMS deposit was predicted by till geochemistry of EXTECH. Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co. Ltd. reconfirmed it by airborne EM and follow-up drilling, and acknowledged the EXTECH results.

• Rock properties work demonstrated that conductivity of the sought-after massive sulphides is 1/10 that previously expected. This caused significant changes in design of exploration geophysical surveys. Standard EM was not so effective, other methods and designs of surveys produced more useful results.

• Letters received from several companies thanked GSC for improving the effectiveness of their exploration programs.

• Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co. Ltd. (the company most familiar with EXTECH I) was the first company sponsor to sign up for GSC's subsequent MITEC project on regional scale alteration zones and sub-volcanic intrusions.

• GSC decided to continue the sub-program with EXTECH II and it has become a corporate way of doing joint research with its stakeholders.

The Bathurst Mining Camp (BMC) is one of Canada's most important mining camps hosting 24 deposits larger than 1 million tonnes including the super-giant Brunswick No. 12 deposit which is currently in production. In 1996, the Bathurst Mining Camp (BMC) in New Brunswick contained 65%, 40% and 34% of Canada's lead, zinc and silver reserves, respectively. The value of production currently exceeds $600 million annually and accounts for 70% of total mineral production in New Brunswick. Approximately 2300 people are directly employed in the mining industry in the BMC.

EXTECH II was initiated there in 1994 because it was felt that without the discovery of new ore reserves, production from the Bathurst Camp would start to decline within seven years and with it, the principal source of economic activity in northeastern New Brunswick. The project has now been completed through a partnership involving industry, universities, New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources, United States Geological Survey and several divisions of GSC. Results have been delivered along the way by a series of papers, Open File releases, talks, workshops and field trips.

An Economic Geology Monograph (final summary papers and contributors), entitled "Massive sulfide deposits of the Bathurst Mining Camp and Northern Maine" is in its final stages of editing by W.D. Goodfellow, S.R. McCutcheon and J. Peter and is expected to be published in 2001.

A third-party impact study of EXTECH II was commissioned by the GSC. As for EXTECH I, it was clear that contributions by EXTECH II to the geoscience knowledge of Bathurst Mining Camp had stimulated additional exploration and helped to focus that exploration on likely targets. In particular, the impact study found the project to be excellently managed and estimated that an additional $3 million of exploration was being stimulated on an annual basis, over and above what would normally have been expected. Other previously recognized results and lessons learned include:

• re-mapped bedrock geology for the entire BMC at 1:20,000-scale and the release of 18 geological maps with major revisions to the stratigraphy and structure;

• unraveled the temporal and spatial relationship between back-arc continental rifting, anoxic bottom waters, magmatism, heat flow, hydrothermal activity, and sulphide formation.

• completed of the Quaternary geology of the BMC at 1:50,000-scale;

• released 95 multi-parameter geophysical maps from a high resolution (200 m line spacing) and multiparamter (magnetics, EM and radiometrics) airborne survey of the entire camp;

• prepared a comprehensive geophysical atlas illustrating the response of 20 massive sulphide deposits to different geophysical methods;

• released geochemical results for a comprehensive stream water and sediment, and vegetation survey of the northern BMC;

• defined vectors to mineralization using mineral and chemical zonation in altered rocks and hydrothermal sediments associated with massive sulphide deposit;

• characterized the form and distribution of indium at the Brunswick No. 12 deposit;

• improved the application of surficial geochemistry in mineral exploration by elucidating the pathways and processes by which metals are dispersed in streams, glacial till and vegetation from sulfide deposits;

• identified the Camelback massive sulphide deposit by a coincident EM and magnetic airborne geophysical anomaly;

• generated a digital, multiparameter, co-registered, internally consistent and attributed geoscience information database and archive for the BMC. This database was served over the internet as part of the ResSources GSC initiative. This site provides access to over 60 datasets compiled as part of the EXTECH II project. Users can pan and zoom to a spatial area of interest; identify features and report their non- spatial attributes; select features by querying their attributes; and generate custom views of data and new products.

Many management lessons learned from EXTECH II are being applied to EXTECH III, IV and other GSC projects.