Characterization of Geotechnical Conditions for Proposed 329 km Remote Transportation Corridor in Northern Ontario

KWG Resources and their wholly owned subsidiary Canada Chrome Corporation own mining claims in the Ring of Fire mineral prospect in northern Ontario and are in the planning and feasibility phase for a proposed 329 km heavy-haul railway link to the nearest existing railroad. The proposed route traverses diverse soils and shallow bedrock over very remote lowland terrain that includes sporadic permafrost. To develop preliminary engineering concepts and costs, a team of engineering geologists and geotechnical engineers working closely with the railroad designer (Krech Ojard & Associates) conducted a preliminary study to characterize the geotechnical conditions along the prospective corridor. The distribution and properties of unconsolidated deposits will have considerable impact on the embankment design and therefore the problem was to make a preliminary characterization of geotechnical conditions within the corridor. The objective of this paper is to describe the methods used to make a preliminary characterization of the geotechnical conditions on a long, linear project that traverses diverse terrain types with sporadic permafrost. The study utilized a number of methods to acquire, analyze, and share the data with the engineering team so that various engineering efforts could proceed in parallel. Engineering geologists developed a terrain unit map of the corridor using digitally displayed aerial photography and LiDAR imagery, and augmented by borehole data. The mapping was captured in GIS format and included a variety of overlays with various data sets. Using the terrain unit mapping and borehole logs, a preliminary 2D geologic profile of the alignment was created.