Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources: Explore the potential of the internet

As an exploration manager, what you really need is an easy-to-use, complete paper and electronic library of government reports and maps, and assessment reports going back a hundred years, right in your office, available around the clock. The helpful librarian should speak your language, and shouldn’t mind if you show up in your boxers.

Qubec is already there, through its Internet-based Sigom (Systme d’information gominire).

Once your project manager has pored over the customized maps of government and assessment file data together with her secret stock of information, she wants to know immediately what ground is available for staking. Without delay, she wants to stake the ground, notify the claims recorder, and register the claims. If she can do all this in a matter of minutes without leaving home, dressed in her pyjamas, so much the better.

Again, Qubec is already there, through its Internet-based Gestim (Gestion des titres miniers) system.

Sigom data at your fingertips

The Qubec Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) has long been concerned with making its data accessible. It began to microfilm all reports in the 1970s, and in 1993 began a 10-year, $17-million program to gather all maps and reports into a digital system. The architecture was based on Microstation software from Bentley coupled with an Oracle database. In 1997 the ministry built a sister system, Sigom Internet, for disseminating the information. The web site for this information is http://www.mrn.gouv.qc.ca. Reports are found at Sigom Examine, and maps at Sigom Atlas.

However, clients who did not have Microstation or dBASE software could not handle the data without translation. So Sigom la Carte was created to serve them. Individual features of a map, such as faults or certain minimum assays, can be used to build a map, which can then be downloaded in software that a company already has, such as MapInfo or ArcView.

The system so far has, as digital files, 50,000 maps in the system and 15,000 reports (2.5 million pages of text), including all the government-produced reports and 10% of the assessment reports. Government reports are mainly in French, but most of the older assessment reports as well as the more recent ones are in both English and French. The general information on the Sigom site is all available in Spanish as well as English and French.

To encourage business, Sigom has dropped its prices. To buy all the available digital products for one 1:50,000 map now costs only $30. The entire Sigom digital, ca.100-gigabyte database, including every bit of public information the ministry has about Qubec, is worth $10 billion, according to Sigom system manager Charles Roy, and can be purchased for only $5,000!

“Last year, a computer-literate Australian geologist with an international mining company came here for two weeks,” says Roy. “He had a look at the whole database of Qubec. We assisted him to extract what he wanted. The mining company did modeling and selected areas of the Labrador Trough and Nunavik for targets. They spent $7.5 million on exploration afterwards.” Roy concludes, “That’s perfect. That’s why we built the system.”

Click GESTIM for a claim

In 1988 Qubec’s Mines Branch created a database to manage all the mining title information that was on the old mylar mining claims maps. This mainframe computer provided access to descriptive claim data to ministry employees and the public at the different regional offices. The next step would be to allow the staking of claims via computer rather than on the ground.

The new GESTIM system for “map-staking” (or “map-designation”) was introduced in November 2000, and can be found at http://tm.mrn.gouv.qc.ca. GESTIM contains tenure information for over 300,000 expired claims, 150,000+ active mining titles as well as information from over 10,000 assessment work declarations. Once on the site, users specify a map sheet and are presented with basic surveying and hydrographic reference maps. The user can then either query the Register for information on active or expired claims or click on a predefined cell to claim it and pay the required registration fees via the MNR’s e-commerce site. Once the application and payment has been received, a Registrar will process the claim and mail the applicant his/her title.

Qubec now has a hybrid system of map-designated ground and the old “park-staked” claims, but in the last six months, >90% of claims have been map-staked by both large and small operators. It’s no wonder. The fee to map-designate one 55-ha cell (south of 50*N) using GESTIM costs only $44, compared with about $200 in logistics and fees for staking a 16-ha claim on the ground. The money saved will likely be spent on exploration work.

Ronald Savard is one of the helpful “librarians” at the Mines Service Centre, ready to answer your questions in French or English regarding Quebc’s Sigom and GESTIM database systems. Reach him by telephone (800-363-7233), fax (418-643-2816), e-mail (ronald.savard@mrn.gouv.qc.ca) or in person at the Ministry of Natural Resources main office at Charlesbourg in Qubec City.