Calcite, Canada

See the article below under construction by Ronnie Van Dommelen.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2012 03:35AM by Rock Currier.

Also:
Marcil Quarry - QC
DJL (St-Philippe) Quarry - QC
Both produced large (15cm+) golden to golden brown calcite crystals (most often very short prisms, almost 'tabular') and large scalenohedrons.

Niobec mine - QC - large flat twins covered with micro marcasite.

Madawaska/Faraday mine - ON - Large very clear golden calcite twins, transparent cleavages with marcasite 'hairs', and best of all, hematite covered scalenohedrons. [ontariominerals.com] [ontariominerals.com]

Phillippe

You do have some good examples of calcite from around Canada. I have been colleting calcites from Leeds and Frontinac Counties in Ontario for a few years. One of my latest calcites is with the geological Dept. of the University of Toronto. For the most part, South Crosby , South Burgess Townships in Leeds County and Storrington Township in South Frontinac Counties, have provided some very interesting and uncommon calcite forms. Lansdowne township in Leeds for example contains modified violet calcites. I have some pictures on MinDat showing these calcites.

Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, has a large calcite crystal from the Steel's Mine and is of a brownish colour. If my memory serves me correctly, it measures about 9 x 10 inches. However I could be off on that since I haven't seen it in some time.

Al

Rock Currier


A couple of calcites from my area.

Al

I forgot to mention the calcite 'cave' in the Bancroft area (Godfrey or Griffith is the town name - ??) I have heard of this location before but can't remember any details about it except it was a huge walk-in vug. I believe it was exposed on a farm property.

Allen have you heard of this location?

Philippe.

Calcite, more than any other mineral forms on cave walls. I have seen a few of them myself and collected in them, perhaps most notably Brushy Creek in Missouri. There the mine intersected a cave network and there were acres of nice to beautiful calcite crystals that could be collected. I spent a day collecting them with a screwdriver. They were growing on some sort of "mud" layer and all you had to do was jam your screwdriver under the specimens and pop them off the wall. One guy could collect faster than two guys could wrap. Years ago I went underground in the Tristate district and saw a "room" lined with large somewhat corroded calcite crystals and saw pictures of a seizable room near Joplin where the ladies would go to escape the summer heat to play cards. In China, I visited the Shimen realgar mine and bought about five tons of large calcite specimens that came from one of the many "caves" that they encountered that had yielded about 10 tons of specimens. These caves are in fact not rare occurrences (world wide) and are able to produce more tons of specimens than the markets can absorb. At Tucson this year I heard of a limestone deposit where large caves of crystals are commonly encountered but this far the management has made no effort to advertise them or collect them. Probably a wise business decision for their bottom line. Even quartz which is probably more common in the earths crust than calcite does not have prolific occurrences like these.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2009 05:37PM by Rock Currier.

Also, the Polaris mine on Little Cornwallis Island has produced clear, pale yellow-brown scalenohedrons to at least 5 cm (from what I have seen). Very fine specimens with high surface lustre.

Peter,

Thanks, and I wonder how many hundreds of other good localities we have overlooked. I have added it to the list.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

A fine Polaris mine specimen was offered to me just a couple of days ago, but I bought a german calcite instead.

Philippe

I haven't heard of that particular cave. I know of one that had been found in the Ottawa area, but the exact location has been kept a secret for a number of years.

Al

Rock,

Here are several locations to check out from Canada;

Newfoundland Zinc Mine - [www.mindat.org]

Walton, Hants Co., Nova Scotia - [www.mindat.org]

Poudrette Quarry, Mt Sainte-Hilaire, Rouville Co., Quebec - [www.mindat.org]

I hope these are of use - Bill



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2009 04:03PM by Bill Morgenstern.

Don't forget the Gaspe Copper Mine, Murdochville Quebec

Bill, Those look like good candidated. Looks like you copied the Walton county image into the Poudrette quarry space. Would you like to take a whack at doing the Canadian calcite article? I don't think I will be able to get to it for a long time. I am currently working on Gold and Quartz, USA.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Rock,

I fixed that link for the Poudrette specimen. At the moment I am swamped with other writing jobs so I don't have time to really research and do the Canada article by myself. I could possibly assist someone else in the future however.

Bill

Geoffrey Krasnov Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don't forget the Gaspe Copper Mine, Murdochville
> Quebec


Geoff - I just checked the database here and there is no info on this location. Can you add some and a picture? I've heard of this but have no info nor have I seen a calcite from Gaspe.

Thanks - Bill



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2009 04:22PM by Bill Morgenstern.

Bill, I understand about being busy doing other things. I hope some interested Canadian will step up and start writing the thing. I fear that if I have to write it, it will be a long time coming. I am going to take a whack and gold and USA Quartz. Those are rather intimidating and I have no idea how long it will take me to give them a quick once over.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Many of the finest calcites from Nova Scotia have come from Tenecape (Tennycape, etc - several spelling varieties). These are from vertical veins and isolated pockets in sandstone and more rarely in the overlying conglomerate. They can have good luster and sometimes nice color. The most notable quality though is the huge variety of shapes and forms. There ARE many forms present, though I suspect the variety of shapes are often due to the same forms developed to different degrees. Shapes include very steep, pointy crystals to disky, UFO shaped crystals. Many of the crystals are twinned - especially along the C-axis.

I've attached a few pics. They are not in the database yet because I don't have measurements for the ones with the blue backgrounds, and the last one I need to take a better pic of (it is about 15cm high).

Unfortunately, the best pieces are about 10 years old now. Not much the last few years.

I'm sure there are some nice Calcites from the Inverhuron area on the shore of Lake Huron.. Some are water clear and twinned, very nice indeed.

Niobec Mine, Quebec




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2012 03:36AM by Rock Currier.

I've collected some excellent orange/amber crystals associated with blue celestine at the Amherst quarry, Amherstburg, Ontario. Also, some deep orange rounded rhombohedra on silicified corals with clear to very pale blue celestine and deep reddish orange micro-sphalerite crystals filling cells within the fossil corals. I'll try to get a pic of a good calcite group for this discussion.