Exploration plans and permitting
exploration and aggregate regulations in Ontario
Mining and Exploration
Geology Handbook
Exploration plans and permitting in Ontario
As of April 2013, Ontario exploration companies and prospectors are require to submit an exploration plan or permit for nearly all early exploration activities.
Exploration plans are submitted by a qualified supervisor who has taken and completed the mining act awareness program.
You must notify surface rights holders as well as affected first nations.
Once submitted, the MNDM will post/circulate your plan for public/native awareness for 30 days (plans) or 50 days (permits). If no modifications are needed and no group voices actionable concerns the exploration activities can commence at the end of the circulation time.
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Exploration And permitting tablesThe table provided by MNDM shows the Plan or Permit number, the project name, the claim holder, all affected claims, the project location, any activities taking place and a start and end date for the activities. Activities...
Exploration Plans and Permits
Early exploration activitiesÂ
| Requires Exploration plan | Activity |
| Stripped area does not exceed 100 square meters (combined) and is more than 200m from another stripped area. Aggregate of all areas to be stripped does not exceed 100 square meters. | Mechanized stripping |
| Yes | Geophysical surveys requiring a generator |
| Drill < 150kg | Drilling |
| Line < 1.5m | Line Cutting |
| Single pit between 1 and 3 cubic meters or multiple pits if located with 200m of each other and combined are between 1 and 3 cubic meters. | Surface trenching and pitting |
| Activity | Requires exploration permit |
| Mechanized stripping | Up to advanced exploration threshold. 10000 square meters, 10000 cubic meters of material. (2500 square meters if 100m from body of water) Link to source |
| Geophysical surveys requiring a generator | No |
| Drilling | Drill >= 150kg |
| Line Cutting | Line > 1.5m |
| Surface trenching and pitting | Up to advanced exploration threshold. 10000 square meters, 10000 cubic meters of material. (2500 square meters if 100m from body of water) Link to source |
Staking a claim
When an area meets the basic exploration criteria it can be staked. This is the government regulated method of determining who has the mineral rights to that area for a set period of time. Once the property is staked, the claim is required to do yearly exploration work on the property of a certain financial value to keep the claim. If the claim owner fails to do any work or abandons the claim it reverts to being stake-able in two years.
Common work done on properties before being sold to an exploration company include mapping, sampling (hand and maybe channel), power stripping with possible small scale drilling. This is all done in an effort to both hold the claim, but to also option it to an exploration company.
With the future introduction of map staking in Ontario, staking will occur online using maps and GPS, for now it requires people to actually physically walk and mark the claim unit.
Prospecting
Prospecting is the boot on the ground kicking over rocks. Prospectors or geologists look over an area for potential exploration target minerals and features which may indicate a further look or staking of a claim.
Commonly rock samples (hand samples) are collected and evaluated for indicator minerals and/or an actual economic minerals.
Optioning or selling a claim
When a prospector or claim owner has a claim, they want to sell or option it to an exploration company. They can aggressively market a group of claims, or if the claim is in an actively sought after area simply option it off when an exploration company becomes interested. Option agreements tend to have cash value, stock options in the exploration company as well as a NSR (net Smelter Royalty) which is a percentage of any mineral actually mined and sold from that property if it ever becomes a mine.