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Seaweed samples (brown rockweed Fusus) were collected along inlets of the west coast of British Columbia to test its usefulness as an exploration medium.

Where streams flow over or through mineralized bedrock, the waters can become slightly enriched in elements associated with the mineralization, and many streams emerge into the sounds where their metal signatures can be readily detected in the rockweed close by. Seaweed anomalously enriched in a commodity metal (and/or its pathfinder elements) can provide focus for a more detailed follow up into the mountains to look for the source – using other prospecting methods such as stream sediments, stream moss mats or the stream waters themselves.

The data are published in Explore Newsletter for the Association of Applied Geochemists, numbers 176 and 178.