The Red Lake mine was one of the largest

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 ...

mines in

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 ...

and in the world. The mine is located in

northwestern Ontario Northwestern Ontario is a secondary region of Northern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north and west of Lake Superior and west of Hudson Bay and James Bay. It includes most of subarctic Ontario. Its western boundary is the ...

at Red Lake. The mine had estimated reserves of 3.23 million oz of

in 2013. Note that the Campbell and Red Lake mines are (or were) mining the same orebody, commonly referred to as the Campbell-Red Lake deposit. The Red Lake Mining District has produced over 26 million ounces of gold through 2020, worth over $US 46 billion at 2020 prices. The two principal mines, Campbell and Red Lake, both have historic ore grades averaging about 0.57 oz/ton Au (22 g/tonne). One famous sample, the "Campbell Mine Whopper", contained 431 ounces of gold in a football-sized rock.Red Lake gold district
at Geology for Investors, May 30, 2022 The rocks and mineralization features in this district are complex. The host rock here is a

metamorphosed Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causin ...

tholeiitic basalt The tholeiitic magma series is one of two main magma series in subalkaline igneous rocks, the other being the calc-alkaline series. A magma series is a chemically distinct range of magma compositions that describes the evolution of a mafic magma i ...

dating to ~2.85 billion years (early

Neoarchean The Neoarchean (; also spelled Neoarchaean) is the last geologic era in the Archean eon that spans from 2800 to 2500 million years ago—the period being defined chronometrically and not referencing a specific level in a rock section on Earth. ...

). This basalt has been subjected to

biotite Biotite is a common group of phyllosilicate minerals within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . It is primarily a solid-solution series between the iron-endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more alumino ...

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate g ...

alteration and auriferous

silicification In geology, silicification is a petrification process in which silica-rich fluids seep into the voids of Earth materials, e.g., rocks, wood, bones, shells, and replace the original materials with silica (SiO2). Silica is a naturally existing and ...

. Gold mineralization has been dated to 2.712-2.723 billion years (during collision-related emplacement of several nearby

igneous 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 ...

s - Uchian Phase of the

Kenoran Orogeny The Algoman orogeny, known as the Kenoran orogeny in Canada, was an episode of mountain-building (orogeny) during the Late Archean Eon that involved repeated episodes of continental collisions, compressions and subductions. The Superior province ...

), and at 2.63-2.66 or 2.699 billion years (during a regional thermal event or another igneous intrusive event). On November 25, 2019,

Newmont Goldcorp Newmont Corporation is a gold mining company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, United States. It is the world's largest gold mining corporation. Incorporated in 1921, it owns gold mines in Nevada, Colorado, Ontario, Quebec, Mexico, the Domin ...

announced an agreement to sell the Red Lake complex to

Evolution Mining Evolution Mining is an Australian gold mining company with projects across Australia and in Ontario, Canada. Evolution owns and operates mines at Cowal, New South Wales; Mt Carlton, Mt Rawdon, and Ernest Henry, Queensland; and Mungari, Western Au ...

. As of early 2021, Evolution has announced resources of 2.9 Million oz Au at 6.9 gms Au/tonne, with a further 5.7 Million oz at 7.7 g/t indicated and 5.3 Million oz at 6.49 g/t inferred. Other projects in the district also are reporting promising results.

References

External links

Dickenson Mine (Red Lake; Goldcorp; Arthur White)
at Mindat.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Red Lake Mine Gold mines in Ontario Red Lake, Ontario Mines in Northern Ontario

See also

References

External links