lndustrial Minerals in Newfoundland

CIM Bulletin, 1965

Industrial minerals production in Newfoundland in- creased in gross value by a total of 175 per cent during the ten-year period from 1954 to 1964. The Province accounts for all of Canada's fluorspar production and contains one of the most important fluorspar districts in North America. It is also the only producer of pyrophyllite in Canada, and quite recently has become an important producer of asbestos fibre. Limestone, gypsum, brick shale, sand and grave! also Contribute appreciably to the expanding industrial minerals phase of the Province's rapidly growing mining industry. Geoiogical diversity characterizes Newfoundland's industrial minerals: Pyrophyllite deposits were formed by -contact metamorphism of predominantly volcanic Proterozoic rocks. Fluorspar deposits are fissure-filling veins having the characteristics of typical epithermal deposits. Chrysotile asbestos production comes from one of the Island's serpentinized ultrabasic belts. Limestone is produced at three localities; two of them in the extensive -carbonate rocks of the west coast. Gypsum production comes from a thick evaporite (gypsum and anhydrite) sequence in the Carboniferous rocks of the St. George's Bay area.

Keywords: anhydrite, fluorspar, Gypsum Baird, pyrophyllite, Southwestern Newfoundland, Asbestos, Deposits, Gypsum, limestone, Newfoundland, Production, Pyrophyllite, Rock, Rocks