Kidd Mine or Kidd Creek Mine is an underground

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 ...

mine north of

Timmins Timmins ( ) is a city in northeastern Ontario, Canada, located on the Mattagami River. The city is the fourth-largest city in the Northeastern Ontario region with a population of 41,145 (2021). The city's economy is based on natural resource ext ...

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. It is owned and operated by Swiss multinational

Glencore Glencore plc is a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas head office is in London and its registered office is in Saint Helier, Jersey. The current company wa ...

Inc. The mine was discovered in 1963 by Texas Gulf Sulfur Company. In 1981 it was sold to

Canada Development Corporation The Canada Development Corporation was a Canadian corporation, based in Toronto, created and partly owned by the federal government and charged with developing and maintaining Canadian-controlled companies in the private sector through a mixture o ...

, then sold in 1986 to Falconbridge Ltd., which in 2006 was acquired by

Xstrata Xstrata plc was an Anglo-Swiss multinational mining company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It was a major producer of coal (and the world's largest exporter of thermal coal), copper, ...

, which in turn merged with Glencore in 2013. Ore from the Kidd Mine is processed into

concentrate A concentrate is a form of substance that has had the majority of its base component (in the case of a liquid: the solvent) removed. Typically, this will be the removal of water from a solution or suspension, such as the removal of water from ...

at the

Kidd Metallurgical Site The Kidd Metallurgical Site (or Met Site) is a metallurgy, metallurgical facility in Timmins, Ontario, Canada. It was built in 1980 and owned and operated by Xstrata, Xstrata Copper, following their 2006 takeover of Falconbridge Ltd. The site ...

, located southeast of the mine, which until 2010 also smelted the ore and refined the metal produced. Following the closure of the majority of the Met Site, concentrate is now shipped to Quebec for processing. Kidd Mine is the world's deepest copper-zinc mine.

History

An aerial geophysical survey, conducted by Texas Gulf Sulphur Company in March 1959, indicated an anomaly in the Kidd-55 segment warranting ground investigation. A ground electromagnetic survey was conducted in Oct 1963 and a drill rig started drilling a 600-foot

core sample A core sample is a cylindrical section of (usually) a naturally-occurring substance. Most core samples are obtained by drilling with special drills into the substance, such as sediment or rock, with a hollow steel tube, called a core drill. The ...

in Nov. The core, later confirmed by the Union

Assay An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity of ...

Office in Salt Lake City, showed an average copper content of 1.15%, an average zinc content of 8.64%, and 3.94 ounces of silver per ton. A second hole was drilled in March 1964, followed by two more in early April. The copper-zinc-silver ore deposit at Kidd Mine discovery was announced in a

press release A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public release. Press releases are also considere ...

after the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit orga ...

meeting on 16 April 1964. Seven drill holes indicated an ore body 800 feet long, 300 feet wide, and a vertical depth of 800 feet. During the initial exploration of the site, then known as Kidd-55, officers of the company engaged in

insider trading Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider informati ...

in Texas Gulf shares. The ensuing lawsuit by the

Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

resulted in a

landmark decision Landmark court decisions, in present-day common law legal systems, establish precedents that determine a significant new legal principle or concept, or otherwise substantially affect the interpretation of existing law. "Leading case" is commonly ...

that established the right of all market participants to have "relatively equal access to material information." The mine began ore production in 1966, as an open pit mine and eventually evolved into an underground mine. The mine produces copper, zinc, and several other metals. The mine has the oldest-known flowing water on Earth. A billion year old water sample collected from the mine was added to the collection at Ingenium in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the c ...

on November 25, 2020.

Geology

The Kidd deposit is one of the largest

volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposit Volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits, also known as VMS ore deposits, are a type of metal sulfide ore deposit, mainly copper-zinc which are associated with and created by volcanic-associated hydrothermal events in submarine environments. ...

s in the world, and one of the world's largest base metal deposits. It lies within the

Abitibi greenstone belt The Abitibi greenstone belt is a 2,800-to-2,600-million-year-old greenstone belt that spans across the Ontario–Quebec border in Canada. It is mostly made of volcanic rocks, but also includes ultramafic rocks, mafic intrusions, granitoid rocks, ...

Current operation

Kidd Mine and Met Site collectively employ approximately 850 employees and contractors. In 2008, the company committed to investing $120 million to extend the production to 2017, and deepen the mine to . The investment would add 3.4 million tonnes of ore into the mine plan. The expansion included the development of three additional production levels and deepening the ramp from the 9100 level to the 9600 level, where the loading pocket is located. This included an extension of the

ventilation Ventilation may refer to: * Ventilation (physiology), the movement of air between the environment and the lungs via inhalation and exhalation ** Mechanical ventilation, in medicine, using artificial methods to assist breathing *** Ventilator, a m ...

and backfill systems to the new sections of the mine. The mine's expected production life has since been extended to 2021. In 2019 exploration drills were set up on the 9,800 level to search out and define the new ore zone.

Depth

Kidd is the deepest

mine in the world. The bottom of No.4 shaft at Kidd Creek Mine D is below the surface, below sea level, the deepest accessible non-marine point on earth.

References

Source

*Hannington, M. D., and Barrie, C. T., editors, 1999, The Giant Kidd Creek Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide Deposit, Western Abitibi Subprovince, Canada: Economic Geology Monograph 10, The Giant Kidd Creek Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide Deposit, Western Abitibi Subprovince, Canada. 672 p. *John Brooks, "Annals of Finance: A Reasonable Amount of Time," ''The New Yorker,'' Nov. 9, 1968, p. 160. **Reprinted in John Brooks, ''Business Adventures.'' New York: Weybright & Talley, 1969. Ch. 4, pp. 118-144.

External links

*{{Official website, www.kiddoperations.ca Copper mines in Ontario Mines in Timmins Volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits Xstrata Zinc mines in Canada Silver mines in Canada