Political and commercial geology and the world's mineral resources

by Unknown

DEVELOPMENTS AND CHANGES IN KNOWN GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

In 1900 New Caledonia supplied 65 per cent. of the world’s production and Ontario 35 per cent. Since then the world’s production has increased six-fold, and Ontario, by the end of 1916, was producing 80 per cent. of the whole. This shows the trend of the industry. Recent discoveries of ore in the Sudbury district and construction of new smelters and refineries in Ontario to treat the ores indicate an increasing dominance of the industry by that district. New Caledonia has not the large ore bodies and is too far away to compete favorably with Ontario, though work will continue there.

Fig. 7.—Refined nickel produced from the ores of New Caledonia and Ontario, for five-year periods; the amounts are for the calendar year indicated.

Statistics of production and ore reserves in Ontario and New Caledonia are shown graphically in [figures 7] and [8].

Isolated nickel ore bodies of the sulphide type—that is, segregations from basic igneous rocks, as at Sudbury—have been found in a number of widely separated places. There is a distinct probability that others exist and may be discovered. Such undiscovered deposits might even contain more accessible ore, in the aggregate, than the total of the mined and unmined ores of the Sudbury district, but in the light of present knowledge this seems a remote possibility.

Other deposits of the New Caledonian and Cuban types will probably be discovered, but it is doubtful if as large deposits of those types remain to be found. In these the nickel has remained in the material left as residuum from the partial or complete weathering by solution of the original nickeliferous rock. This material lies at the surface and covers relatively broad areas. Bodies of it are therefore not usually difficult of discovery. They seem to be found most abundantly in warm latitudes, where solution weathering has most easily gone on under conditions favorable for preservation of the residuum.

Fig. 8.—Nickel production, and nickel content of reserves, in Ontario, New Caledonia, and Norway.

The present known nickel and nickeliferous iron-ore deposits indicate roughly the locations of perhaps all or nearly all of the nickeliferous metallographic provinces of the world. It is in these provinces that new deposits are most likely to be found. The wide-spread distribution of these provinces is indicated by the following statement in the Report of the Ontario Nickel Commission:

While competition is not to be feared (that is, for Ontario), it would be futile to try to shut off the supply of nickel from almost any of the great nations. * * * Nearly every important country has supplies of nickel ore which can be worked if the demand is great, thus ensuring a high price.

It is thought probable that the nickeliferous metallographic province of eastern Canada, which includes the Sudbury district, contains the greatest unknown nickel deposits, just as it contains the greatest known one, and this for three reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that the great nickel-ore bodies of the Sudbury district, the isolated Alexo ore body, 150 miles north of the district, and the appreciable content of nickel in the veins of the Cobalt and other districts near by, indicate an unusually large nickel content in the original magma from which the basic igneous rocks were derived. The second reason is that the mantle of glacial drift effectively conceals large areas of underlying rock and prevents easy discovery. The third is that the wild and unsettled nature of the country inhibits the human activities whereby accidental or other discoveries would be made.