OK - C'mon BNL - get the game underway. Everyone else is going...

OK - C'mon BNL - get the game underway. Everyone else is going to be pumping up helium before BNL at this rate.

Helium confirmed at Northeast Minnesota drill site - InForum | Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo news, weather and sports (wctrib.com)

Helium confirmed at Northeast Minnesota drill site

Its presenceconfirms an accidental discovery made in 2011 by a drill crew looking forplatinum-palladium minerals

BABBITT — A company looking for helium beneath Northeastern Minnesota'sforest floor said it found the lightweight gas this week, confirming an earlier2011 finding.

In a news releaseThursday, Feb. 29, British Columbia-based Pulsar Helium said its drilling rigencountered gases with a 12.4% helium concentration at depths of 1,750 and2,200 feet. The concentration was measured with an on-site mass spectrometer.The collected gas samples will be sent to a laboratory for "full molecularcomposition, removal of atmospheric (air) contamination, and isotopiccharacterization," the company said.

Gary Meader /Duluth Media Group

Pulsar HeliumPresident and CEO Thomas Abraham-James called the initial findings "anoutstanding result."

"It is a bigday for helium exploration, confirming the original discovery in the newjurisdiction of Minnesota. I look forward to keeping the market updated withfurther results as they are received," Abraham-James said in the release.

The drill site,called the Topez Project, is located 9 miles down the graveled Dunka River Road— riddled with potholes and tire ruts amid an unusually warm winter — as wellas Cleveland-Cliffs’ Peter Mitchell Mine and the unincorporated community ofIsabella.

The company began drilling earlier this month and had planned to drill another 50 feet down to a depth of 2,250 feet, but abnormally warm temperatures and looming road weight restrictions have forced the company to stop early and dismantle the Wyoming drilling rig, which is usually used for oil and gas drilling.

Crews plan toinstall a well-testing device on the borehole to take additional samples andconduct more tests when road conditions allow.

Helium was first found at the site in 2011 when a drill crew from Duluth Metals, a precursor to copper-nickel mining company Twin Metals, was searching for platinum-palladium minerals in the Bald Eagle Intrusion. A borehole instead hit a pocket of gas that tests showed contained 10.5% helium — the second-highest concentration found in North America — with the remainder carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

Anything above 0.3%is considered of economic interest.

Helium is often abyproduct of the oil and natural gas industry, but the Minnesota find couldprovide a hydrocarbon-free source of the element when there is otherwise ashortage of the gas. Pulsar has said it wants to install a production wellon-site if conditions are right, but Minnesota would likely need newregulations overseeing it.

Helium is highlysought after for being very nonreactive and can be a lightweight gas or take aliquid form near absolute zero to cool equipment. It’s used in everything frommagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, semiconductor manufacturing and leaktesting, to air tanks for medical patients and deep-sea divers, to theaerospace and defense industries.

Helium forms asradioactive elements uranium and thorium decay deep in the earth. It then movesup through fissures and gets trapped in pockets closer to the surface.

And thanks to theMidcontinent Rift, which formed 1.1 billion years ago as North America tried topull itself apart, sending magma up and leaving behind deposits of copper,nickel and other metals in areas like Minnesota’s Duluth Complex and TamarackIntrusion, there are plenty of fissures for that helium to take.

While this is thefirst helium discovery in Minnesota and the Duluth Complex, Pulsar officialsbelieve the geology of the Bald Eagle Intrusion could contain more heliumpockets.