Academic literature on the topic 'Gold mines and mining Canada History'

In the Bathurst Mining Camp (BMC), 12 of the 45 known massive sulphide deposits were mined between 1957 and 2013; one was mined for iron prior to 1950, whereas three others had development work but no production. Eleven of the deposits were mined for base metals for a total production of approximately 179 Mt, with an average grade of 3.12% Pb, 7.91% Zn, 0.47% Cu, and 93.9 g/t Ag. The other deposit was solely mined for gold, present in gossan above massive sulphide, producing approximately one million tonnes grading 1.79 g/t Au. Three of the 11 mined base-metal deposits also had a gossan cap, from which gold was extracted. In 2012, the value of production from the Bathurst Mining Camp exceeded $670 million and accounted for 58 percent of total mineral production in New Brunswick.Base-metal production started in the BMC in 1957 from deposits at Heath Steele Mines, followed by Wedge in 1962, Brunswick No. 12 in 1964, Brunswick No. 6 in 1965, Caribou in 1970, Murray Brook, Stratmat Boundary and Stratmat N-5 in 1989, Captain North Extension in 1990, and lastly, Half Mile Lake in 2012. The only mine in continuous production for most of this time was Brunswick No. 12. During its 49-year lifetime (1964–2013), it produced 136,643,367 tonnes of ore grading 3.44% Pb, 8.74% Zn, 0.37% Cu, and 102.2 g/t Ag, making it one of the largest underground base-metal mines in the world.The BMC remains important to New Brunswick and Canada because of its contributions to economic development, environmental measures, infrastructure, mining innovations, and society in general. The economic value of metals recovered from Brunswick No. 12 alone, in today’s prices exceeds $46 billion. Adding to this figure is production from the other mines in the BMC, along with money injected into the local economy from annual exploration expenditures (100s of $1000s per year) over 60 years. Several environmental measures were initiated in the BMC, including the requirement to be clean shaven and carry a portable respirator (now applied to all mines in Canada); ways to treat acid mine drainage and the thiosalt problem that comes from the milling process; and pioneering studies to develop and install streamside-incubation boxes for Atlantic Salmon eggs in the Nepisiguit River, which boosted survival rates to over 90%. Regarding infrastructure, provincial highways 180 and 430 would not exist if not for the discovery of the BMC; nor would the lead smelter and deep-water port at Belledune. Mining innovations are too numerous to list in this summary, so the reader is referred to the main text. Regarding social effects, the new opportunities, new wealth, and training provided by the mineral industry dramatically changed the living standards and social fabric of northern New Brunswick. What had been a largely poor, rural society, mostly dependent upon the fishing and forestry industries, became a thriving modern community. Also, untold numbers of engineers, geologists, miners, and prospectors `cut their teeth’ in the BMC, and many of them have gone on to make their mark in other parts of Canada and the world.

By the 1930s, silicosis – a debilitating lung disease caused by the inhalation of silica dust – had reached epidemic proportions among miners in the gold-producing Porcupine region of northern Ontario. In response, industrial doctors at the McIntyre Mine began to test aluminum powder as a possible prophylactic against the effects of silica dust. In 1944, the newly created McIntyre Research Foundation began distributing aluminum powder throughout Canada and exported this new therapy to mines across the globe. The practice continued until the 1980s despite a failure to replicate preventative effects of silicosis and emerging evidence of adverse neurological impacts among long-time recipients of aluminum therapy. Situated at the intersection of labour, health, science, and environmental histories, this article argues that aluminum therapy represents an extreme and important example where industry and health researchers collaborated on quick-fix “miracle cures” rather than the systemic (and more expensive) changes to the underground environment necessary to reduce the risk of silicosis.

Background and objectivesMining may involve exposure to many carcinogens, including respirable crystalline silica (RSC), diesel engine exhaust (DEE), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), radon (Rn), and arsenic (As), which vary by ore being mined. The province of Ontario, Canada has a diverse mining sector with associated exposures including gold (RSC/DEE/As/Cr), uranium (RSC/DEE/Rn), and nickel-copper (DEE/Ni), and other ores (RSC/DEE). The study aim was to examine the risk of cancer by ore type in a mixed mining cohort.MethodsFrom 1928–1987 workers in the Ontario minerals industry were required to undergo an annual physical examination and chest x-ray, as well as record their mining work history in order to receive certification. Data from these exams was used to create the Mining Master File (MMF) cohort. Cancers were identified through linkage of the MMF with the Ontario Cancer Registry (1964–2017). Cancer risk among miners was compared to provincial rates using Standardized Incidence Ratios (SIR); internal analyses were conducted using Poisson regression.ResultsIndividuals who died or were lost before 1964, had missing or invalid data, or employment of less than two weeks were excluded. Too few women (n=161) were available for analysis. In total, 61 397 men were included in the analysis. Gold miners had excesses of lung (SIR=1.30, 95%CI=1.23–1.38) and nasopharyngeal cancer (SIR=2.34, 95%CI=1.39–3.70). Uranium miners had excesses of lung (SIR=1.57, 95%CI=1.45–1.70), bladder (SIR=1.20, 95%CI=1.02–1.40), and bone (SIR=2.45, 95%CI=1.30–4.19) cancers. Nickel-copper miners had excesses of lung (SIR=1.13, 95%CI=1.08–1.19), bone (SIR=2.02, 95%CI=1.32–2.96), and sinonasal cancer (SIR=1.73, 95%CI=1.12–2.56).ConclusionsIncreased risks for specific cancers were observed among people who mined many different ore types. Most of the associations were as expected, but several (e.g., bone cancers) will undergo further investigation. Future analyses will examine the impact of combined exposures among miners of multiple ore types.

The history of mining and exploration in Panama is a case study of the evolution of mining in a tropical, island arc environment in the New World from prehistoric to modern times over a period of ~1900 years. Panama has a strong mineral endowment of gold (~984 t), and copper (~32 Mt) resulting in a rich mining heritage. The mining history can be divided into five periods. The first was the pre-Columbian period of gold mining from near the start of the Current Era at ~100 CE to 1501, following the introduced of gold metalwork fully fledged from Colombia. Mining of gold took place from placer and vein deposits in the Veraguas, Coclé, Northern Darien and Darien goldfields, together with copper for alloying. Panama was the first country on the mainland of the Americas to be mined by Europeans during the Spanish colonial period from 1501-1821. The pattern of gold rushes, conquest and settlement can be mapped from Spanish records, starting in Northern Darien then moving west to Panama in 1519 and Nata in 1522. From here, expeditions set out throughout Veraguas over the next century to the Veraguas (Concepción), Southern Veraguas, Coclé and Central Veraguas goldfields. Attention returned to Darien in ~1665 and led to the discovery of the Espíritu Santo de Cana gold mine, the most important gold mine to that date in the Americas. The third period was the Republican period following independence from Spain in 1821 to become part of the Gran Colombia alliance, and the formation of the Republic of Panama in 1903. This period up to ~1942 was characterized by mining of gold veins and placers, and manganese mining from 1871. Gold mining ceased during World War Two. The fourth period was the era of porphyry copper discoveries and systematic, regional geochemical exploration programs from 1956 to 1982, carried out mainly by the United Nations and the Panamanian government, as well as private enterprise. This resulted in the discovery of the giant porphyry copper deposits at Cerro Colorado (1957) and Petaquilla (Cobre Panama, 1968), as well as several other porphyry deposits, epithermal gold deposits and bauxite deposits. The exploration techniques for the discovery of copper were stream sediment and soil sampling, followed rapidly by drilling. The only mine developed in this period was marine black sands for iron ore (1971-1972). The fifth and current period is the exploration and development of modern gold and copper mines since 1985 by national and foreign companies, which started in response to the gold price rise. The main discovery methods for gold, which was not analyzed in the stream sediment surveys, were lithogeochemistry of alteration zones and reexamination of old mines. Gold mines were developed at Remance (1990-1998), Santa Rosa (1995-1999 with restart planned in 2020) and Molejon (2009-2014), and the Cobre Panama copper deposit started production in 2019. The level of exploration in the country is still immature and there is high potential for the discovery of new deposits.

ABSTRACTThe ‘Lobi’ region in what is today southern Burkina Faso is frequently mentioned in historical accounts of gold mining in West Africa. However, little is known about the actual location of the gold mines or about the way gold mining and trade were organized in precolonial times. This article points out that some previous hypotheses about precolonial gold mining, trade and the sociopolitical organization of this region are flawed, partly because ‘Lobi’, as the name for both the region and its inhabitants, is misleading. In fact, the references to ‘Lobi’ merge two distinct gold-producing zones along the Mouhoun river, about 200 km from each other. The present-day populations of southern Burkina who have settled there since the eighteenth century do not know who was mining gold prior to their arrival, and many of them have not been involved in gold mining at all due to conceptions of gold as a dangerous substance.

Abstract The gold and silver endowment of Korea has historically been well known, with records alluding to production as far back as 1122 BC. The main gold production period was from 1925 to 1943 during the Japanese occupation of Korea, with more than 1 Moz recorded in 1939. Muguk was the most productive gold mining operation, located within the central region of South Korea, with a recorded 590 koz of gold produced from 1934 to 1998 (first mined in AD 912). The majority of the historical mining operations were closed by government order in 1943 during the Second World War and never reopened. A number of small mines operated between 1971 and 1998, with limited production during a period of gold prices generally lower than at present (~25–50% of current inflation adjusted prices, apart from a four-year period 1979–83). It is likely that significant resources remain within these historical mining areas. Gold-silver deposit types historically recognized and exploited in Korea include placers and orogenic and intrusion-related vein systems. Only more recently have epithermal vein and breccia systems been recognized. This is not surprising, given that the geologic and tectonic setting of the Southern Korean peninsula is prospective for epithermal precious metal deposits, spatially associated with basin-scale brittle fault systems in Cretaceous volcanic terranes. South Korea is an underexplored jurisdiction, with limited modern exploration and drilling until the mid-1990s, when Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. discovered the Gasado, Eunsan, and Moisan epithermal gold-silver deposits, all of which became mines. Exploration was limited for another 20 years until Southern Gold Ltd., an Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed company, commenced regional-scale exploration for epithermal deposits, using a strategy similar to that successfully employed by Ivanhoe.

AbstractThe present article shows that, according to archaeological and literary evidence, an expansion in mining occurred in the early Islamic world as a result of changes in mining technology at the end of Late Antiquity. The production of gold, silver, copper, iron, and other minerals is shown to have peaked in the eighth and ninth centuries and then to have declined during the tenth and eleventh centuries due to insecurity and/or exhaustion of the mines. Mining development was financed privately, and mines were usually private property.

The pervasive importance of gold mining in modern South Africa has become embedded in South African historiography. Despite this, little research has been done to ascertain its impact on the other major sector of the economy, agriculture.The gold mines had a profound effect upon one particular branch of agriculture – beef farming. The mines purchased large amounts of beef and were able to use their buying power to confront beef farmers in the marketplace. In the recession following the First World War, the mines were caught in a profitability crisis that was to lead to the Rand Revolt in 1922. One of the ways in which mining attempted to ease its position was by cutting back on the cost of the meat it supplied to its African labour force. This initially involved co-operation with a powerful cold-storage company, big ranchers and a number of smaller farmers to form a Meat Producers Exchange. This fragile alliance fell apart when farmers, themselves on the verge of bankruptcy, attempted to take control of the Exchange and raise beef prices. The farmers failed and in 1923 the exchange collapsed.The victory of the mining and cold-storage companies rested on a number of factors. Farmers were unable to organize effectively because of the defection of ranchers to the mines. Changing economic conditions in 1922 and 1923 permitted the mines to terminate their co-operation with beef farmers. Finally the mines were able to call upon the state for support. The state ensured the demise of the Exchange and the defeat of the beef farmers. In the process it showed itself capable of intervening decisively to protect the interests of certain sections of capital.

a comprehensive literature review of mining extraction and industry was made. The review discusses thoroughly mining industry from different viewpoints that includes general introduction, historical background of mining industry, mines development and life cycle, mining extraction techniques, machines used in mining processes, mineral processing, environmental effect on operators and the surrounding area, mining industry, safety precautions in mining industry, human rights abuses occurring within mining sites and communities in close proximity, mines records, metal reserves and recycling, and finally the mining industry in Sudan which includes history, production & impact, legal frame work, commodities, gold extraction and outlook.

Preventive maintenance practices have been proven to reduce maintenance costs in many industries. In the mining industry, preventive maintenance is the main form of maintenance, especially for mobile equipment. With the increase of sensor data and the installation of wireless infrastructure within underground mines, predictive maintenance practices are beginning to be applied to the mining equipment maintenance process. However, for the transition from preventive to predictive maintenance to succeed, researchers must first understand the maintenance process implemented in mines. In this paper, we conducted interviews with 15 maintenance experts from 7 mining sites (6 gold, 1 diamond) across East-Canada to investigate the maintenance planning process currently implemented in Canadian mines. We documented experts’ feedback on the process, their expectations regarding the introduction of predictive maintenance in mining, and the usability of existing computerized maintenance management software (CMMS). From our results, we compiled a summary of actual maintenance practices and showed how they differ from theoretical practices. Finally, we list the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relevant for maintenance planning and user requirements to improve the usability of CMMS.

This thesis analyses the establishment of a health and safety system on the Witwatersrand gold mines in the period between the end of the South African War and the eve of World War Two. The period has been chosen, firstly, because the South African War had seriously disrupted production and the industry virtually had to start up again from scratch; secondly, because it was during this period that mine and state officials began to seriously investigate the reasons for the appalling mortality and morbidity rates on these mines; and, thirdly, because during this period some improvements did occur which were significant enough to enable the industry to warrant the lifting, in the latter part of the 1930s, of the ban on tropicals, enforced since 1913 as a result of their extremely high mortality rate. In the first thirty years of the twentieth century about 93 000 African miners died disease-related deaths and in the same period some 15000 African miners were killed in work-related deaths. In attempting to establish why so many African miners died, the thesis attempts to identify the diseases and accidents that caused these deaths and considers what attempts were made to bring mortality and morbidity rates down. Whilst the thesis is neither a history of gold mining in South Africa nor an economic history of South Africa in the period 1901 to 1939, it nevertheless, as detailed in the first chapter, places the health and safety system within the context of the wider political and economic forces that shaped the mining industry in this period. The need for a productive and efficient labour force, vital for the industry'S survival during a number of profitability crises in this period, forced the industry to reassess compound structures, nutrition and eventually the health of its work force. These issues of compounds, work and diet are discussed in chapters two, three and four. Appalling living and working conditions led to a high incidence of pulmonary diseases - TB, silicosis and pneumonia - which were the principal killers on the mines. Attempts to cure or prevent their occurrence are discussed in chapter five. Fear of disruptions to production ensured that the mining industry eventually also devoted considerable resources to accident prevention, a theme which is discussed in chapter six. The thesis concludes that the mining industry for much of this period was able to determine the pace of change; neither state officials nor African miners were able to significantly alter the tempo. In fact the industry was so successful that it was able to convince a number of government commissions in the 1940s that the migrant system had to stay, to ensure the wellbeing of the miner. This meant that despite considerable time, money and effort being spent on establishing a health and safety system on the gold mines, the mining industry was still of the opinion that the health of their workers was best served if they were sent home.

A review of Archean granite-greenstone terranes, orogenic gold deposits, the Slave Province and modern exploration tools, techniques and methods was conducted to identify prospective areas in the Yellowknife domain for hosting orogenic gold deposits and illustrate the best exploration methods for delineating this deposit type. This study identifies Archean granite-greenstone terranes as economically important hosts to quartz-carbonate vein-hosted orogenic gold deposits. These deposits occur at convergent plate margins, but can also be related to local extensional tectonics within a convergent setting. Heat generated from tectonic processes can trigger hydrothermal fluid movement along first-order faults and shear zones. Precipitation of gold-bearing quartz-carbonate veins from the hydrothermal fluids occurs in second- and third-order faults and shear zones related to the first-order structures. This study also identifies the Archean Slave Province in northern Canada as a well-endowed craton with numerous orogenic gold deposits, diamondiferous kimberlites, VMS deposits and several other mineralization styles. In particular, three greenstone belts (Yellowknife, Cameron River and Beaulieu River) associated with likely first-order structures are comprised of prospective rocks for hosting orogenic gold and VMS mineralization. The Yellowknife greenstone belt hosts the past-producing and former world-class Con and Giant orogenic gold deposits, but has been little explored with modern exploration techniques. The Cameron River and Beaulieu River greenstone belts host numerous base and precious metal VMS and BIF-hosted orogenic gold prospects and deposits, indicating mineralization is present. There is considerable potential for significant discoveries to be made using modern exploration techniques in the greenstone belts; however, exploration in the region has been hindered over the past decade by ongoing political negotiations. Once the political negotiations are finalized, application of modern exploration methods and techniques in the prospective greenstone belts should be carried out. Regional scale methodologies should be applied to generate targets using predictive modelling, implicit 3D modelling, 3D geochemistry and exploration targeting so decisions defining a businesses strategy for ground acquisition of high priority targets are made using quantitative analysis. Once ground is acquired, field-based exploration for orogenic gold and VMS deposits should include geological mapping with a focus on structural geology, geochemical sampling and airborne magnetic, radiometric and EM geophysical surveys. Prior to reconnaissance drilling, integration of all data layers and interpretation within a common 3D earth model should be conducted. Following successful reconnaissance drilling, definition drilling along strike and down dip of intersected mineralization, combined with borehole geophysics, should be carried out to delineate the extent of mineralization.

Elinor Ostrom (2005: 238) assumes that in understanding the make up and behaviour of institutional systems governing natural resources: “Resource users are explicitly thought of as rational egoists who plunder local resources so as to maximise their own short-term benefits. Government officials are implicitly depicted, on the other hand, as seeking, the more general public interest, having the relevant information at hand and the capability of designing optimal policies.” This thesis examines the validity of this assumption through an historical analysis of the deep-level gold mining industry of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. The main focus of the assessment is on the institutions of ownership – that is, the development of mining rights and title legislation between 1886 and 2008. The study looks at the legislations’ transformation and implementation from the perspective of the gold mining industry – made up of the mining finance houses and the Chamber of Mines of South Africa – and that of the state. The transformation of the mining industry’s institutional framework was both a choice by government as well as that of the firms in the mining industry. The theoretical framework is constructed from four areas of economic thought. These include: the neoclassical and Keynesian schools of macroeconomic thought; industrial organisation and its relevance to the relationship between firms and the market; institutional and new institutional economics; and finally property rights. The determinants of policy design and the impact of such design on firms and industry is examined. The development, implementation and use of the aforementioned legislation is examined from two perspectives, namely, that of preserver or exploiter. Throughout the history of this prominent South African industry, the motivation for action from the industry or government has oscillated between the two extremes of preserver or exploiter over the time period examined. The conclusion is drawn on an overall and broad focus of actions – with a strong focus on the most recent developments in mining legislation – post-1992.

A thesis submitted to the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences (APES), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa in fulfilment of the academic requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Johannesburg, February 2013
Decades after the commencement of modern mining in the 1870s, the South African mining industry addressed the impacts associated with its mine waste deposits. In this, it followed the pattern its international peers had set. This study aims at chronicling, for the first time, the mining industry’s efforts to develop scientifically sound and replicable methods of mine waste rehabilitation. Mindful of the limitations in accessing official and public written sources for such an applied science, the study seeks to take a broader approach: It considers factors beyond pure experimental results (of which only patchy records exist), and considers the socio-economic context or the role of certain personalities, in an effort to understand the evolution of the applied technology between the 1930s until the passage of the Minerals Act in 1991. The bulk of this mine waste rehabilitation work during this period was done by the Chamber of Mines of South Africa and its members, the gold and (later) coal miners. The focus will therefore be on these sectors, although other mining sectors such as platinum will be covered when relevant. Following decades of ad hoc experimentation, concern about impending legal pollution control requirements in the 1950s spurred key gold industry players to get ahead of the curve to head off further regulation. Their individual efforts, primarily aimed at dust suppression, were quickly combined into an industry initiative located within the Chamber of Mines. This initiative became known as the Vegetation Unit. Well resourced and managed by a dynamic leader with horticultural training – William Cook – the Unit conducted large-scale and diverse experiments between 1959 and 1963 to come up with a planting and soil amelioration methodology. The initial results of this work were almost immediately published in an effort to publicise the industry’s efforts, although Cook cautioned that this was not a mature methodology and that continued research was required. The Chamber of Mines, however, was trying to head off pending air quality legislation and in 1964/65, the organisation publicly proclaimed the methodology as mature and ready for widespread application. With this decision, the Unit’s focus shifted to widespread application while its ability to advance the methodology scientifically effectively collapsed in the 1960s and early 1970s. In addition to this shift of focus and resources to application rather than continued refinement, the Unit was constrained by non-technical and non-scientific factors: Key among them was the industry’s implicit belief, and hope, that a walk-away solution had been found. The Unit’s manager Cook stood alone in driving its application and refinement for most of his time in that position. In his day-to-day work, he lacked an industry peer with whom to discuss rehabilitation results and he compounded this isolation through limited interaction with academia until very late in his career. This isolation was amplified by the lack of relevant technical knowledge among the company representatives on the committee tasked with the oversight of the Vegetation Unit: As engineers, all of them lacked not only technical understanding of the botanical and ecological challenge, some even questioned the legitimacy of the Unit’s existence into the 1980s. In addition, the concentration of all rehabilitation efforts in this single entity structurally curtailed the individual mining companies’ interest in the advancement of the methodology, creating a further bottleneck. Indeed, as late as 1973, the key metallurgy handbook covered mine waste rehabilitation only for information purposes, specifically stating that this was the responsibility of the Chamber’s Vegetation Unit alone. To some extent, the presence of a champion within the Chamber – H. Claussen – obscured some of these challenges until the early 1970s. Indeed, the Unit had acquired additional scientific capacity by this stage, which gave it the ability to renew its research and to advance its methodology. That it failed to do so was mainly due to three factors coinciding: the retirement of its internal champion Claussen, a lack of succession planning for Cook, which left the Unit on ‘auto-pilot’ when he retired, and a rising gold price, which turned industry attention away from rehabilitation towards re-treatment of gold dumps. During this period of transition in the mid 1970s, the Chamber’s approach was thus somewhat half-hearted and vulnerable to alternative, potentially cheaper, rehabilitation proposals such as physical surface sealing advanced by Cook’s eventual successor – Fred Cartwright. Though not grounded in any science, Cartwright’s proposal gained ascendance due to his forceful personality as well as the industry’s desire for an alternative to the seemingly open-ended costs associated with the existing rehabilitation methodology. During this time, the Chamber’s structures singularly failed to protect the industry’s long-term interests: The oversight committee for the Vegetation Unit, remained largely staffed by somewhat disinterested engineers, and relied heavily on a single individual to manage the Unit. Not only did the oversight committee passively acquiesce to Cartwright’s virtual destruction of the Unit’s grassing capacity, it also allowed him to stake the Chamber’s reputation with the regulator by championing an unproven technology for about five years. Only Cartwright’s eventual failure to gain regulator approval for his – still un-proven – technique led to a reluctant abandonment by the Chamber in the early 1980s. Cartwright’s departure in 1983 left the Unit (and the industry) without the capacity to address mine waste rehabilitation, at a time when emerging environmental concerns were gaining importance in social and political spheres in South Africa and across the world. The Unit sought, unsuccessfully, to build alliances with nascent rehabilitation practitioners from the University of Potchefstroom. It furthermore failed to build mechanisms for sharing technical rehabilitation knowledge with fellow southern African or international mining chambers, leading to further stagnation of its method. At the same time, up-and-coming South African competitors such as the University of Potchefstroom seized the opportunity to enter the mine waste rehabilitation field as commercial players during the mid 1980s, at a time when the Unit had been reduced to grassing dumps for a single customer, the Department of Minerals and Energy Affairs (DMEA). Using its status as a part of the Chamber of Mines, the Unit gradually regained its position of prominence through the development of industry guidelines for rehabilitation. Yet, it would never again occupy a position of pre-eminence in practical fieldwork, as industry players, academic capacities and commercial players entered the field in the mid-1980s in response to a growing environmental movement worldwide. When the passage of the Minerals Act in 1991 formally enshrined not merely rehabilitation but environmentally responsible mine closure in law, the Unit had been reduced to a prominent but no longer dominant player in this sector. This lack of pre-eminence ultimately caused the Unit to be among the first Chamber entities to be privatised when the Chamber began to restructure. This ended its role as a central driver of applied rehabilitation techniques for the South African mining sector once and for all. As this privatisation coincided with the broader opening up of South Africa’s society and economy after the unbanning of the ANC, there would never again be an entity (commercial or otherwise) that would dominate the rehabilitation sector as the Chamber’s Vegetation Unit had done in its day.

Beginning in 1848, the circum-Pacific world experienced dozens of gold rushes; they punctuated the histories of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Although individual prospectors dominate the national narratives of gold rushes, by the mid-1850s, industrial mining technologies had largely replaced individual miners with their pans and shovels. Notable among these industrial technologies was hydraulic mining, which used high-pressure water hoses to flush large amounts of gold-bearing gravel into sluice boxes saturated with mercury. Industrial mining technologies were portable—engineers who perfected hydraulic mining in California exported the practice to Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Hydraulic mining exacted startling environmental costs: floods, deforestation, erosion, and toxic pollution. This chapter is by Andrew Isenberg.

This chapter, by Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, covers the Gold Coast’s moment in the imperial rush for gold. It highlights the frenzy surrounding the rush in British West Africa at the turn of the twentieth century, as witnessed in the ruthless promotion of local mining prospects in the foreign press. It also shows the circulations of capital, technology, labor, and ideologies inherent to such rushes, helping as they did to accelerate imperial expansion. At the same time, the chapter raises the topic of the limits of globalization. Connected to that point, and in examining changes at a regional level, it touches on the dynamic and changing nature of the indirect recruitment system that brought West African contract men to the mines.

This chapter, by Erik Eklund, focuses on the gold-mining industry from the middle of the nineteenth century through to the 1930s, with a focus on the role of company formation, working conditions, and state intervention. Utilizing case studies from Canada, South Africa, Ghana, Fiji, and the Australian colony of Victoria, it explores the rise of “industrial mining” over this period. Industrial mining involved larger, more heavily capitalized enterprises, in which workers became wage laborers and owners became shareholders. Industrial mining gendered and racialized the workforce in different ways according to local circumstances, which are explored in each case study. State intervention either underpinned the rise of industrial mining or worked to create uneasy accommodations between industrial work and older traditional patterns of subsistence.

This chapter discusses the place of mining in the history and theory of capitalism. It talks about Adam Smith who explained that of all the expensive and uncertain projects which bring bankruptcy upon the greater part of the people who engage in them, there is none perhaps more perfectly ruinous than the search for new silver and gold mines. However, Adam Smith could not anticipate the innovative industrial force that mining would have in nineteenth-century Britain. Nor did Smith see the force of mining in the movement toward land improvements in northern Europe. Other than reflecting negatively upon the coal mines of England, Smith said very little about the relationship between mining and wealth.

Abstract The Brucejack intermediate-sulfidation epithermal Au-Ag deposit, located 65 km north of Stewart, BC, forms part of a well-mineralized, structurally controlled, north-south gossanous trend associated with Early Jurassic intrusions straddling the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic Stuhini-Hazelton Group unconformity in the Sulphurets mineral district. Mining of the deposit commenced in mid-2017 after a long history of exploration dating back to the 1880s. Mineralization is hosted in deformed Lower Jurassic island-arc volcanic rocks of the Hazelton Group exposed on the eastern limb of the Cretaceous McTagg anticlinorium. High-grade Au-Ag mineralization was formed from ~184 to 183 Ma in association with a telescoped, multipulsed magmatic-hydrothermal system beneath an active local volcanic center. Precious metal mineralization occurs as coarse aggregates of electrum and silver sulfosalts in steeply dipping, E- to SE-trending quartz-carbonate vein stockwork zones cutting low-grade intrusion-related phyllic alteration. Epithermal vein development is interpreted to have occurred during the waning stages of Early Jurassic sinistral transpression in a compressive arc environment, followed by a limited Cretaceous deformation overprint.

The Uranium Mine Remediation Exchange Group meetings of representatives from US, Canada, Australia and Germany have been going on since 1993. The novelty of UMREG 2002 was that the traditional group from was extended to representatives from CEEC, which have a history of uranium mining and milling and are presently involved or interested in environmental remediation (ER) of the legacy. The meeting was attended and/or presentations given by representatives from Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Russian Fed. and Slovenia. Furthermore, representatives from overseas countries, Brazil, Japan and Namibia having a present or historical uranium mining and the intent to remediate the consequences of the mining provided a contribution. The extended UMREG membership confirms the increasing interest in ER remediation and in following the “Good Environmental Remediation Practice” guidelines and provides a broader idea pool for the future UMREG meetings.

Australia's and China's resources (e.g. Olympic Dam Cu-U-Au-Ag and Bayan Obo REE deposits) highlight how discovery and mining of iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG), iron oxide±apatite (IOA) and affiliated primary critical metal deposits in metasomatic iron and alkali-calcic (MIAC) mineral systems can secure a long-term supply of critical metals for Canada and its partners. In Canada, MIAC systems comprise a wide range of undeveloped primary critical metal deposits (e.g. NWT NICO Au-Co-Bi-Cu and Québec HREE-rich Josette deposits). Underexplored settings are parts of metallogenic belts that extend into Australia and the USA. Some settings, such as the Camsell River district explored by the Dene First Nations in the NWT, have infrastructures and 100s of km of historic drill cores. Yet vocabularies for mapping MIAC systems are scanty. Ability to identify metasomatic vectors to ore is fledging. Deposit models based on host rock types, structural controls or metal associations underpin the identification of MIAC-affinities, assessment of systems' full mineral potential and development of robust mineral exploration strategies. This workshop presentation reviews public geoscience research and tools developed by the Targeted Geoscience Initiative to establish the MIAC frameworks of prospective Canadian settings and global mining districts and help de-risk exploration for IOCG, IOA and affiliated primary critical metal deposits. The knowledge also supports fundamental research, environmental baseline assessment and societal decisions. It fulfills objectives of the Canadian Mineral and Metal Plan and the Critical Mineral Mapping Initiative among others. The GSC-led MIAC research team comprises members of the academic, private and public sectors from Canada, Australia, Europe, USA, China and Dene First Nations. The team's novel alteration mapping protocols, geological, mineralogical, geochemical and geophysical framework tools, and holistic mineral systems and petrophysics models mitigate and solve some of the exploration and geosciences challenges posed by the intricacies of MIAC systems. The group pioneers the use of discriminant alteration diagrams and barcodes, the assembly of a vocab for mapping and core logging, and the provision of field short courses, atlas, photo collections and system-scale field, geochemical, rock physical properties and geophysical datasets are in progress to synthesize shared signatures of Canadian settings and global MIAC mining districts. Research on a metamorphosed MIAC system and metamorphic phase equilibria modelling of alteration facies will provide a foundation for framework mapping and exploration of high-grade metamorphic terranes where surface and near surface resources are still to be discovered and mined as are those of non-metamorphosed MIAC systems.