Atlin-Taku Mineral Resource Assessment, Northwestern British Columbia

A com mon el e ment in plan ning the ad min is tra tion of the land sur face—or base—is to col lect in for ma tion that sum ma rizes cur rent and po ten tial uses of an area un der con sid er ation for a change of use. This in for ma tion should en com pass all mea sures of value of the land, such as cul tural, eco nomic, en vi ron men tal or wild life. Brit ish Co lum bia has a well-es tab lished pro ce dure for land-use as sess ment, which in cludes min eral po ten tial as sess ment to con sider both known and po ten tial subsurface min eral re sources. The prov ince-wide Level 1 Min eral Re source As sess ment (MRA1) was com pleted in the 1990s by the Brit ish Co lum bia Geo log i cal Sur vey (BCGS) of the Min is try of En ergy, Mines and Pe tro leum Re sources. Sev eral ad di tional re gional as sess ments, such as North Coast, Cen tral Coast and Lillooet, have been un der taken since then (Mac In tyre et al., 2003). These Level 2 Min eral Resource As sess ments (MRA2) gen er ally in volved sub di vi sion of ex ist ing tracts and re dis tri bu tion of the Level 1 val ues to these new tracts or, in the case of Atlin-Taku, new as sess ments. The methodologies employed in the Level 1 and 2 assessments were described by MacIntyre et al. (2003).