Researchers to map High Arctic island

An upcoming research expedition to an Arctic island could help kickstart a new wave of oil and gas exploration in Canada’s Far North.

The research team, led by Keith Dewing of the Geological Survey of Canada, will travel to Ellef Ringnes Island next summer to collect data from areas where petroleum resources were first discovered nearly half a century ago.

“There was exploration done up there by a group of companies called PanArctic Oils back in the 1960s, 1970s, and that exploration ended in the 1980s,” Dewing, a research scientist based in Calgary, told CBC News.

“It was very successful; they found all sorts of resources up there back in the old days. But of course, none of it was really economic. They couldn’t make money producing what they found because of the location.”

CBC