The Kanichee Mine, also less commonly known as the Ajax Mine, is an abandoned

base metal A base metal is a common and inexpensive metal, as opposed to a precious metal such as gold or silver. In numismatics, coins often derived their value from the precious metal content; however, base metals have also been used in coins in the past ...

and

precious metal Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value. Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lustre. ...

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

, located in the

Temagami Temagami, formerly spelled as Timagami, is a municipality in northeastern Ontario, Canada, in the Nipissing District with Lake Temagami at its heart. The Temagami region is known as ''n'Daki Menan'', the homeland of the area's First Nations commu ...

region of northeastern

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It is near the small unincorporated community of

Temagami North Temagami North, formerly known as Goward, is a community comprising part of the municipality of Temagami in Nipissing District, Ontario, Canada. It is a residential subdivision centred on Spruce Drive, about north of Temagami itself. In 1924 t ...

, accessed by the Kanichee Mine Road from Highway 11. The Kanichee Mine zone has been explored and mined discontinuously from as early as 1910. During the 20th century, it operated and closed down at least three times, with the most recent being from 1973 to 1976. To date, the discontinuous operation of Kanichee Mine has produced 4.2 million pounds of metal. The Kanichee area is associated with an

igneous Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or ...

intrusion In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...

that has been termed the Kanichee layered intrusive complex. This roughly oval-shaped intrusive complex is part of a

volcanic belt A volcanic belt is a large volcanically active region. Other terms are used for smaller areas of activity, such as volcanic fields. Volcanic belts are found above zones of unusually high temperature () where magma is created by partial melting ...

characterized by

felsic In geology, felsic is a modifier describing igneous rocks that are relatively rich in elements that form feldspar and quartz.Marshak, Stephen, 2009, ''Essentials of Geology,'' W. W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. It is contrasted with mafic rocks, whi ...

and

mafic A mafic mineral or rock is a silicate mineral or igneous rock rich in magnesium and iron. Most mafic minerals are dark in color, and common rock-forming mafic minerals include olivine, pyroxene, amphibole, and biotite. Common mafic rocks include ...

metavolcanic rock Metavolcanic rock is volcanic rock that shows signs of having experienced metamorphism. In other words, the rock was originally produced by a volcano, either as lava or tephra. The rock was then subjected to high pressure, high temperature or both ...

s called the

Temagami Greenstone Belt The Temagami Greenstone Belt (TGB) is a small 2.7 billion year old greenstone belt in the Temagami region of Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It represents a feature of the Superior craton, an ancient and stable part of the Earth's lithosphere ...

. Kanichee is one of the three most notable mines in the volcanic belt, others include the

Sherman Mine Sherman Mine is a closed open pit mine in Temagami, Ontario, Canada. It was a major producer of iron ore, starting production in 1968 and closing in 1990. Sherman was the largest open pit mine in Temagami, consisting of seven open pits known as t ...

in Chambers and Strathy townships and the

Copperfields Mine Copperfields Mine, originally known as Temagami Mine, is an abandoned copper and silver mine on Temagami Island in Lake Temagami, Ontario, Canada. The mine opened in 1955 and comprises both underground and surface workings within a sulfide ore b ...

Temagami Island Temagami Island, formerly spelt as Timagami Island, is an island in Lake Temagami in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is the largest island within the lake, with Bear Island coming second. The island has many hiking trails that lead into the old-gr ...

Lake Temagami Lake Temagami, formerly spelled as Lake Timagami, is a lake in Nipissing District in northeastern Ontario, Canada, situated approximately 80 km north of North Bay. The lake's name comes from ''dimii-agamiing'' "tih-MEE-uh-guh-MEENG", which me ...

Geology

Mineralogy and history

Exploration work was done in the area prior to 1920 with the construction of

trench A trench is a type of excavation or in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a wider gully, or ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or pit). In geology, trenches result from eros ...

es and two shafts. Between 1933 and 1936, Cuniptau Mines Limited sank a shaft and installed a pilot

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including Silver mining#Ore processing, silver, iron-making, iron, copper extracti ...

. Production amounted to 44,975.6 kilograms of

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

, 29,641.6 kilograms of

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

, and relatively small amounts of

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...

and

palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...

. The deposit was later investigated by Ontario Nickel Corporation Limited from 1937 to 1948 then by Trebor Mines Limited from 1948 to 1949. Kanichee Mining Incorporated worked the property from an open pit to excavate both disseminated and vein ore to a depth of nearly from 1973 to 1976, and no mining operations have begun since then. Remnants of this open pit includes a small lake with gravel roads adjacent to and entering the lake and steep cliffs surrounding the lake from

rock blasting Drilling and blasting is the controlled use of explosives and other methods, such as gas pressure blasting pyrotechnics, to break rock for excavation. It is practiced most often in mining, quarrying and civil engineering such as dam, tunnel o ...

. The total production at Kanichee Mine is 3 million pounds of copper and 1.2 million pounds of nickel with gold, silver and

platinum group The platinum-group metals (abbreviated as the PGMs; alternatively, the platinoids, platinides, platidises, platinum group, platinum metals, platinum family or platinum-group elements (PGEs)) are six noble, precious metallic elements clustered to ...

credits.

The main minerals found at Kanichee Mine include

pyrite The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Iron, FeSulfur, S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic Luster (mineralogy), lust ...

pyrrhotite Pyrrhotite is an iron sulfide mineral with the formula Fe(1-x)S (x = 0 to 0.2). It is a nonstoichiometric variant of FeS, the mineral known as troilite. Pyrrhotite is also called magnetic pyrite, because the color is similar to pyrite and it is ...

and

chalcopyrite Chalcopyrite ( ) is a copper iron sulfide mineral and the most abundant copper ore mineral. It has the chemical formula CuFeS2 and crystallizes in the tetragonal system. It has a brassy to golden yellow color and a hardness of 3.5 to 4 on the Mo ...

, occurring as semi-massive to massive veins. Considerable gold, silver, platinum and palladium occur with the sulfides.

Kanichee layered intrusive complex

The

Precambrian The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the ...

oval-shaped Kanichee layered intrusive complex is the largest of many sill-like mafic-

ultramafic Ultramafic rocks (also referred to as ultrabasic rocks, although the terms are not wholly equivalent) are igneous and meta-igneous rocks with a very low silica content (less than 45%), generally >18% MgO, high FeO, low potassium, and are composed ...

bodies in felsic and mafic metavolcanic rocks in the northern portion of the Temagami greenstone belt.Geology and petrogenesis of the Kanichee layered complex, Ontario
/ref> It comprises five magmatic series, each of which contains one or more types of igneous rock. A succession of cumulus phases comprising every magmatic series suggests that the Kanichee layered intrusive complex is south-facing, including the surrounding metavolcanic lava flows. This record indicates that magmatic rocks of the Kanichee layered intrusive complex originally formed in a level position and most likely very shallow beneath the Earth's crust. Kanichee silo

All five magmatic series comprising the Kanichee layered intrusive complex were formed by individual pulses of molten rock. An accurate estimate of the makeup of each pulse is not known because well-defined examples of chilled margins have not been detected. Numerous pulses of magmatic intrusions, each of which might have led to a volcanic eruption, are required to explain the cyclic nature of the Kanichee layered intrusive complex. In the lower four magmatic series, masses of

chromite Chromite is a crystalline mineral composed primarily of iron(II) oxide and chromium(III) oxide compounds. It can be represented by the chemical formula of FeCr2O4. It is an oxide mineral belonging to the spinel group. The element magnesium can s ...

olivine The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers quickl ...

and

clinopyroxene The pyroxenes (commonly abbreviated to ''Px'') are a group of important rock-forming inosilicate minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks. Pyroxenes have the general formula , where X represents calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), iron (Fe II) ...

develop rocks varying from

dunite Dunite (), also known as olivinite (not to be confused with the mineral olivenite), is an intrusive igneous rock of ultramafic composition and with phaneritic (coarse-grained) texture. The mineral assemblage is greater than 90% olivine, with mi ...

clinopyroxenite Pyroxenite is an ultramafic igneous rock consisting essentially of minerals of the pyroxene group, such as augite, diopside, hypersthene, bronzite or enstatite. Pyroxenites are classified into clinopyroxenites, orthopyroxenites, and the websteri ...

. The fifth magmatic series comprise a similar suite of ultramafic rocks overlapped by olivine and

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

gabbro Gabbro () is a phaneritic (coarse-grained), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling of magnesium-rich and iron-rich magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is che ...

s in which

plagioclase Plagioclase is a series of tectosilicate (framework silicate) minerals within the feldspar group. Rather than referring to a particular mineral with a specific chemical composition, plagioclase is a continuous solid solution series, more prope ...

, clinopyroxene and an

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

oxide phase are the dominant minerals. The first magmatic series comprised the nickel-copper-PGE ore in which the Kanichee Mine extracted. The comparison in

mineralogy Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...

and

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

of the ultramafic rocks of the five magmatic series indicates that every magmatic series was developed by magma of similar composition. A lens-shaped area of quartz gabbro remains directly south of the main portion of the intrusive complex. However, it is not clear whether it has a separate magmatic origin from the olivine gabbros found in the Kanichee layered intrusive complex. The ore zone rocks from the first magmatic series clearly have connections with adjacent metavolcanic rocks of the Temagami greenstone belt.

Kanichee Mine and the future

The future of the Kanichee Mine remains uncertain, as all mines in the Temagami area continue to be abandoned. The last mine to operate in the Temagami area was the iron bearing

until its closing in 1990 and Kanichee's discontinuous history of mining and exploring throughout the 20th century has left the area abandoned for decades. However, a geologic project is expected to be evaluated for potential sampling at new Kanichee deposits in 2009, sparking a possibility for renewed mining operations. Other samplings associated with this project include new deposits or occurrences in the Golden Chalice, McWatters and Langmuir areas.

References

External links