Land of Nipigon
Gold and Precious MetalsQuick Links
The First 3.5 Billion Years
The Last Billion Years
Glaciers - frozen past
Geological Map of the Region
Geological Features and where to see them
Gold and Precious metals
Visitors from Space
2020 Land of Nipigon Adventure Guide:
Printed: $10 +shipping
FREE DOWNLOAD - The Original Guidebook
This Guidebook is from 2016/2017 and may contain businesses and phone numbers that may not exist or have changed. The destinations all hold true. For updated information get the new guidebook which is constantly being updated.
Geological History
Gold and precious metals
Old rocks contain rarer/heavy minerals. As the process of creating continental crust allows for the heavy stuff to sink to the middle, it is important today that old rocks contain elevated rare and heavy minerals. These are the precious metals of today – Gold and silver to name the most popular.
As the old rocks sink and begin to melt they release fluids, fluids rich in minerals from the rocks from which they come from. As these fluids migrate to the surface, following fractures and cracks in the earth they carry their precious minerals. As the fluids solidify into what we see today as quartz, their precious minerals also start solidifying. Sometimes these newly formed quartz veins have so much precious metals that they form concentrations of gold and silver.
Northwest Ontario is known for its narrow vein (quartz), high grade gold deposits (concentrated gold deposits in veins). Numerous gold mines have produced gold in the Beardmore to Geraldton area as well as the still producing Red Lake Gold district which has one of the highest grades in the world. All because of the old rocks that lay beneath.
Flecks of gold in a quartz vein from the Beardmore area. Typical of the high grade, low quantity gold mines in the area.
