A new Geoscience BC-driven collaboration has produced a digital compilation of Mine Tailings and Waste Rock for British Columbia.

The Critical Minerals and Metals in BC Mine Tailings and Waste Rock research project has gathered existing publicly available data to produce a searchable digital product that uses Canada’s critical minerals list as a guide to inventory legacy and current mineral deposits and their respective mine tailings and waste rock sites across the province.

The project was completed by Purple Rock Inc. with additional support from Foresight Canada who contributed data related to transportation routes, power infrastructure, labour pools and cleantech innovators. In addition, the Abandoned Mines Branch (BC Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals) contributed data to the project.

Minister of Mining and Critical Minerals Jagrup Brar said “My ministry is actively working with industry, unions, stakeholders, and First Nations to advance B.C.’s critical minerals sector. That’s why we were pleased to have Ministry staff participating on the Project Advisory Committee and providing data and information to help develop this inventory to further the sector for the benefit of all British Columbians.”

Geoscience BC Vice President, Minerals, Christa Pellett said “The results of this project provide a key starting tool for industry, government, communities and indigenous groups to understand BC’s potential for remining or extracting minerals or materials from closed mines or the unprocessed rock left behind from mining.”

Foresight Canada Regional Director, Kylie Williams said: “This project is truly transformative. Purple Rock’s detailed mapping of waste rock piles and tailings, combined with Foresight’s additional data on milling, power, infrastructure, labour, and cleantech availability, lays a necessary foundation for cleantech adoption in mining and positions BC to provide critical minerals to global supply chains and lead in reconciliation through sustainable economic development.”

Critical minerals and metals are essential building blocks for the development of cleaner technologies. BC’s Critical Minerals Strategy, released in 2024, has already highlighted that the province is a world-class mining destination that hosts 16 of Canada’s 31 critical minerals.

The digital compilation includes mineral occurrences, geographic, environmental and infrastructure data to produce a geospatial project containing the location and known characteristics of more than 1,000 tailings and waste rock sites from more than 500 current and legacy mining sites with critical minerals. The geospatial dataset also includes information relating to an additional 2,000 occurrences that may have tailings and waste rock material of interest for critical minerals and metals extraction. All identified sites were informally ranked based on their critical mineral development potential.

Purple Rock Inc. Founder & CEO, Nicole D. Barlow, P.Geo., said: “This project organizes the existing data on waste rock and tailings in British Columbia into a critical minerals–centric inventory. For the industry, this new inventory provides spatial locations, metadata and volume estimates on the most prospective waste rock and tailings sites in BC. We look forward to opportunities to build on this work with industry, government and other research partners, by analyzing more occurrences for the presence of waste rock and tailings and capturing detailed geochemical analyses of existing sites.

Arca Head of Science and Co-founder, Dr Greg Dipple said: “Mine waste can be used to remove atmospheric carbon dioxide safely and permanently, thereby contributing to stabilizing the climate. This is a massive multi billion-dollar opportunity for the global mining industry. Canadian mining can lead in this effort, based on tools like this digital compilation.”

Geoscience BC gratefully acknowledges the financial support of Foresight Canada, Arca and New Gold on this project, and overall support of the Mining Association of British Columbia and the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia. Geoscience BC also acknowledges the volunteer technical support provided by the Project Advisory Committee assembled to support this project:

• Anika Bergen, Geologist, Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals, Abandoned Mines Branch
• Julie Deriaz, Project Lead, Critical Minerals Potential in Canadian Mine Tailings, CanmetMINING, Natural Resources Canada
• Alf Hills, Consultant and Geoscience BC Minerals Technical Advisory Committee member
• Bev Quist, Field Inspector Abandoned Mines, Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals, Abandoned Mines Branch
• Tyler Rice, Senior Advisor Corporate Affairs, Cassiar Gold Corp.

Geoscience BC is also working with partners and members to develop new Project Concepts. Contact us if you have identified a need for new geological research or to get involved.

Accessing information

To view project information, visit the project page or view the project area on Geoscience BC’s Earth Science Viewer online mapping application.

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About Geoscience BC 

Geoscience BC is a not-for-profit society managing and co-funding independent geoscience research in collaboration with members and partners from industries, governments, communities and Indigenous groups in British Columbia. Our public research informs decisions about critical minerals and metals, cleaner energy, carbon management and water.

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of our partners, including the Province of British Columbia through the Ministries of Energy and Climate Solutions, and Mining and Critical Minerals.

Visit geosciencebc.com or follow us @GeoscienceBC to find out more.