Victoria Stinson's Honours Thesis Abstract

Musselwhite Mine is a fly-in underground gold mine 500km north of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada with a main ore zone of metamorphosed and deformed banded iron formation.  Adjacent to the main ore zone metapelites and amphibolites were sampled to study the metamorphic zones and facies using stable metamorphic mineral assemblages.  The metapelite samples included garnet-biotite schist, staurolite-garnet-biotite schist, and previously undocumented, sillimanite-staurolite-garnet-biotite schist.  The amphibolite samples, grunerite schist and biotite-grunerite schist, are unusual, as typical amphibolites have stable metamorphic mineral assemblages of plagioclase-hornblende, not biotite-grunerite-plagioclase.  As metamorphism, deformation, and gold mineralization were synchronous the presence of staurolite and sillimanite provide both metamorphic and gold mineralization conditions. The metamorphic zones at Musselwhite Mine are staurolite or first sillimanite and the metamorphic facies is amphibolite.  The presence of staurolite and sillimanite, in the form of fibrolite, constrain the temperatures of metamorphism, deformation, and gold mineralization to 500-690ºC. 

For more details about this thesis contact Dr. Mary Louise Hill