Ontario Mineral Inventory

Ontario Geological Survey
Permanent Link to this Record: MDI52F07NW00002

Record: MDI52F07NW00002

General

Commodities

Primary Commodities: Gold

Secondary Commodities: Silver

Location

Township or Area: Harper Lake Area

Latitude: 49° 24' 11.79"    Longitude: -92° 50' 58.85"

UTM Zone: 15    Easting: 510905.779   Northing: 5472298.352    UTM Datum: NAD83

Resident Geologist District: Kenora

NTS Grid: 52F07NW

Point Location Description: Precise

Location Method: Conversion from MDI

Access Description: A gold prospect, locally known as the Gold Rock mine, on mining location D141, on the west shore of Upper Manitou Lake, about 1.5 km southwest of Stony Island, was worked on before the turn of the century. (OGS GR 189, p. 65; 1979)

Geology

Province: Superior

Subprovince: Wabigoon

Terrane: Western Wabigoon

Belt: Eagle-Wabigoon-Manitou

Geological Age: Precambrian  

Lithology

Mineralization

Mineralization Comments

Feb 23, 2010 (C Ravnaas) - PAST PRODUCTION: 300 TONS @ 0.12 OPT AU. A.P. Coleman visited the Gold Rock Mine in 1896, and following is his account (Coleman 1896, p.84): The most important camp on the lake when we were there was that of Mr. Haycock, who represents an enterprising Ottawa company consisting of Messrs. C.W. Mitchell, H.F. Brady and E.B. Haycock. The company owns locations 138, 139, 140, 141D on the Upper Manitou, their house and mill being prettily situated on the shore of 141 D. The camp is one of the cleanest and neatest to be found in the region. The mill house contains a two stamp Tremaine mill which cost, laid down, about $1,800. The buildings are made of logs and whip-sawn lumber, the whole cost of outfit, including house, mill, stable and blacksmith shop, being about 32,500. The mill can treat about six tons per day, according to Mr. Haycock, who served as millman, and ran in all seventy hours, treating about eighteen tons of "job lots" from various veins in the neighborhood, the average value secured being about |25 per ton. The mill is stated to have worked excellently. Nine men were employed on the average during the season; but work had just stopped, all the men but one being paid off the day before we arrived, July 27. Deposits of various kinds are found on 141D, and shafts have been sunk from ten to twenty feet [3 to 6 m] on two veins near the mill, the nearest being small and irregular but very rich. The "Big Mill" vein a few rods away is a sheared band of quartz and grey schist, nine feet [3 m] wide with a strike about east and west and a dip of 75 to 80 degrees to the south. It is in a fine grained, massive, green gray diabase. The quartz is often white, contains iron pyrites of two colors and copper pyrites, and looks like Rode's vein on Little Turtle lake. A dike of grey granite forty feet [12 m] wide runs northeast and southwest through a green grey schist and contains many small quartz veins and stringers, said to carry gold. The granite itself is of ten impregnated with sulphides and is stated to pan gold at times, but a specimen assayed at the School of Science, Toronto, contained none. Masses of slender black tourmaline crystals occur frequently in the quartz of some of these veins. In the late 1920s, the Gold Rock Mining Syndicate, Limited optioned mining location D141 from the Haycock Estate, along with four other claims from the Manitou Lakes area. Then, according to Thomson (1933, p.32), [Gold Rock Mines, Limited] was organized in 1929 and took over five groups of claims from the Gold Rock Mining Syndicate, Limited. Practically all work was done on the old Haycock property (Claim D. 141) on the west shore of Upper Manitou Lake during 1928 and 1929. Camps were erected to accommodate 40 men, and all necessary mine buildings, including a 2-stamp mill, were completed. The old shaft was deepened and a crosscut was driven 170 feet [52 m]. The rocks in the vicinity of the mine are chiefly altered quartz diorite with lesser amounts of andesite and agglomerate. It is impossible to state whether the quartz diorite is a coarse-grained phase of a lava or an intrusive. About 400 feet [122 m] west of the mine buildings there is a small mass of intrusive granite. At the shaft the vein is covered by the dump and mine timbers, but it is exposed in a pit east of the dump and may be traced a distance of 25 feet [7.6 m] to the lake shore. The vein, which is 1.5 feet [0.5 m] wide, is well defined and consists of white quartz with a little green schist, which carries some pyrite and a trace of chalcopyrite. Native gold was observed in the quartz at the lake shore.. (OGS GR 189, p. 65-66; 1979)

Mineral Record Details

References

Part - Geology of the Manitou-Stormy lakes area

Publication Number: ARV42-04.001 Page: 32-33  Date: 1998

Author: Thomson J.E.

Publisher Name: Ontario Dept. of Mines

Location:

Mono - Gold deposits of Ontario, part 1, districts of Algoma, Cochrane, Kenora, Rainy River, and Thunder Bay

Publication Number: MDC013 Page: 167  Date: 1971

Author: Ferguson S.A., Groen H.A., Haynes R.

Publisher Name: Ontario Dept. of Mines and Northern Affairs

Location:

MonoMap - Geology of the Upper Manitou Lake area, District of Kenora

Publication Number: R189 Page: 65-66  Date: 1979

Author: Blackburn C.E.

Publisher Name: Ontario Geological Survey

Location:

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For detailed information regarding this mineral record please contact the Kenora Resident Geologist District Office