Québec Innovative Materials Corp. Expands Natural Hydrogen Exploration in Ontario
News related to:Québec Innovative Materials Corp · 3 min read
Québec Innovative Materials Corp. (QIMC) has announced an expanded natural hydrogen exploration program in the Ontario extension of the Témiscamingue Graben. The program, which will run in parallel with QIMC’s ongoing 2D Vibroseis seismic campaign, aims to advance target definition for Ontario’s 2D seismic surveys and drilling.
The Ontario program includes an extensive soil-gas coverage, with 823 new stations at 100-meter spacing over approximately 80 line-kilometres. This brings the total database to more than 1,733 stations and over 125 line-kilometres. The exploration also encompasses geophysical coverage, including more than 1,100 gravimetric stations, district-wide mobile gamma-ray spectrometry, and radon-thoron measurements, alongside an audiomagnetotelluric (AMT) survey.
Technical leadership for the program is provided by Prof. Marc Richer-Laflèche, Ph.D., of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS). He will integrate the Ontario datasets into QIMC’s proprietary R2G2™ exploration framework, which will guide follow-up development.
QIMC’s President and CEO, John Karagiannidis, emphasized the strategic importance of Ontario in the company’s clean hydrogen portfolio.
The 2025 Ontario soil-gas results, conducted in collaboration with DiagnaMed Holdings Corp. under INRS technical direction, showed a mean of 558 ppm H₂ and a median of 456 ppm. Phase 2 extended the anomalous zone by more than 11 kilometers northward, defining a hydrogen-bearing area of roughly 260 square kilometers (11.3 km north-south by 23 km east-west) across 45.3 line-kilometres of traverse. The Témiscamingue median value stands in sharp contrast to regional background medians of 50 to 125 ppm recorded in the neighboring Abitibi.
QIMC will work alongside the Timiskaming First Nation to carry out the Ontario soil-gas station work, building on the company’s established relationship with the TFN in the Témiscamingue district. Field employment, training, and data-collection roles are part of the 2026 program.
The exploration program is non-invasive, with soil-gas samples collected by hand from shallow probes; gravity readings taken with portable meters at surface; and gamma-ray spectrometry acquired from a moving vehicle on existing roads and tracks. The Ontario program involves no explosives, no shot-hole drilling, no hydraulic fracturing, and no reservoir stimulation.
Prof. Marc Richer-Laflèche, Ph.D., explained the geological context and significance of the 2026 work program.
The geological context of the Ontario side of the graben is characterized by greater thicknesses of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks (Liskeard Group, Wabi Group), consisting of Ordovician (Dawson Point Formation) and Silurian (Earlton and Thornloe Formations) rocks, which can total several hundred meters in thickness. These rocks are likely to act both as transitional reservoirs during hydrogen ascent and, locally, as cap rocks (mudstone) slowing hydrogen migration toward the subsurface.
The work, which will be carried out largely in the fall of 2026, is located south of the perimeter of the surveys carried out in 2025. More specifically, the surveys will be carried out in the areas of the municipalities of Thornloe, Hanbury, Dymond, Temiskaming Shore, Kerns, Kennebec, and McCool.
The soil-gas survey aims to evaluate the role of faults in the western part of the graben in the mechanisms governing natural hydrogen emplacement within the graben, and to document the spatial distribution of hydrogen above the Paleozoic limestone zones that mark the areas of greatest subsidence in the graben. The gravimetric survey, comprising more than 1,100 stations, will help detect the deepest depocenters of sedimentary rock accumulation and locate structural discontinuities between the Archean, Proterozoic, and Paleozoic blocks in the region. The radiometric survey will help document the likely presence of redox halos associated with hydrogen transfer to the subsurface. The AMT survey will provide vertical penetration of the ground to a depth of roughly 1.5 km, refining fault geometry at depth and documenting variations in the thickness of sedimentary rocks that unconformably overlie the Precambrian basement.
The company’s commitment to responsible exploration, technical innovation, and sustainable development is evident in its ongoing efforts to advance its district-scale hydrogen exploration model across Québec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Minnesota.