Quantitative Assessment of Orogenic Gold Resources in Finland

The potential metal resources in undiscovered orogenic gold deposits in the Finnish bedrock were estimated down to 1 km depth using the 3-part quantitative assessment method. A grade-tonnage model was constructed based on data from known Fennoscandian and North Australian orogenic gold deposits. Eight permissive tracts were delineated for Archaean orogenic gold deposits, 13 for Palaeoproterozoic Karelian deposits, and 11 for Palaeoproterozoic Svecofennian deposits in Finland, and the number of undiscovered deposits in each tract was estimated. The mean estimate of the number of undiscovered orogenic gold deposits is 18 for the Archaean tracts, 45 for the Karelian tracts, and 27 for the Svecofennian tracts. The median undiscovered resources in Archaean, Karelian and Svecofennian deposits are 140 t, 400 t and 210 t of gold, respectively.