The Taylor pit, near or perhaps within the town of Madoc, was billed as the antimony analogue of the Lengenbach Quarry. However, unlike the Lengenbach, there are no vugs in the marble for cm sized xls to grow. Although there were cm sized metallic masses, the xls are in the mm range. In 1966 Moyd & Steacy mined 2000 lbs which was broken into several hundred pieces. The first selection gave about 200 pieces with sulfide grains, which were x-rayed and yielded 18 hits, 16 of which were veenite. The pit is exhausted and specimens are extremely rare.
In 2003 Laszlo Horvath reports: Since this is one of the great Canadian type localities (for 9 species), I wanted to visit the place to get the correct info for my book on Canadian type minerals. My wife and I spent couple of hours looking and asking until a local chap confirmed where the former Taylor farm and farmhouse was. We received permission to search for the "pit" and located it by almost falling into it. The ground is uneven and with the tall grass and bushes in the area such small excavation made almost 40 years ago are not readily visible. The pit is about 3x4 m at the top and about 6 m deep. There was all kinds of rubble in the pit such as fenceposts, branches etc. The pit was excavated for specimens by the Geological Survey of Canada and Canadian National Museum (now Canadian Museum of Nature) in the summer of 1967. The excavation included drilling and blasting. From what I have seen, the chances of finding more sulfosalt material are not very good even with very difficult work, and its questionable that permission for further excavation would be given. I have looked at the recovered material in the CMN collection and it is mostly massive sufide and sulfosalt masses. Tiny euhedral crystal were found, you can see SEM photos of these in Min. Rec. 13, (1982) 93-100.
The coordinates of the pit are: 44º30'05.3" N, 77º27'55.5" W.
Refs.:
Jambor (1967a) Can. Min. 9, 7-24,
Jambor (1967b) Can. Min. 9, 191-213
Jambor (1968) Can. Min. 9, 507-521
Jambor et al. (1982): Mineral. Rec. 13, 93-100.
|
|
|
Map Reference: 44°30'5"N , 77°27'55"W
Important Disclaimer: This locality information is for reference purposes only. You should never attempt to
visit any sites listed in mindat.org without first ensuring that you have the permission of the land and/or mineral rights holders
for access and that you are aware of all safety precautions necessary.
Switch between Map and Globe
|
