Wall Street meltdown trickles down to mineral exploration

Financial meltdowns in the U.S. tend to make lenders and investors jittery about spending money on anything. And junior mineral exploration companies in Northern Ontario are feeling the pinch.

Ontario Prospectors Association president Garry Clark says with more diamond drill rigs and geophysical survey gear are being freed up, it's a sure sign that exploration companies are pacing themselves to preserve cash.

Based on his conversations with junior company executives, Clark says raising funds in the financial markets is a tough go and many juniors have seen their stock plunged "by 60 per cent or higher."

How it will impact the winter drill season is hard to predict, he says. If its flow-through money, juniors will spend it and hope the market can get investors interested in coming back. "People are still spending but they're looking over their shoulders wondering what they're going to do."

With gold prices soaring to record highs, Clark says it's easier to raise money for those exploration projects than for for less understood base metal potentials.