Atlantic Geoscience Society
Dept Earth & Environmental Science, Acadia University B4P 2R6 Wolfville, NS, Canada

The Atlantic Geoscience Society will be hosting a free public talk over Zoom on Thursday October 21, 2021 at 7pm (ADT). This talk, given by Prof. Grant Wach of Dalhousie University, is titled: Geoforensics in Nova Scotia: Applications of GPR for the study of Graveyards and Criminal Investigations.

Our Showcase of Nova Scotia Fossils & Geology video series, developed by Tim Fedak, Curator of Geology, for grade 12 features interviews & presentations from in...ternational palaeontologists who have studied the fossils & geology of Nova Scotia. https://museum.novascotia.ca/resources/geology #linkinbio

Nova Scotia has been mining coal commercially for 300 years, since the French established a mine at Port Morien in 1720 to supply coal for Fortress Louisbourg. ...But how did our world-class coal deposits form? Nova Scotia’s coal deposits starting forming 300 million years ago when NS had a tropical climate tectonic plate movement had us in the middle of supercontinent Pangea, down around the equator. Swamps contained dense vegetation that died, drifted to the bottom of the swamps and gradually formed peata soggy, sponge-like material. As the peat accumulated, the weight of the top layers compacted the lower layers by squeezing out water. The peat was buried over time by sediments and ocean water. Deeper burial increased pressure and heat on the vegetation, causing chemical and physical changes, and pushing out oxygen. Over thousands of years, this turned the peat into the coal that still provides over half of Nova Scotia’s electricity. Because of how it is compacted, it takes approximately 3-7 feet of plant material to form one foot of coal. A coal seam one-metre thick can represent 2,500 to 5,000 years of plant accumulation in ancient swamps. The thickest coal seam in Nova Scotia is the Foord seam in the Pictou Coalfield, which is 13.4 metres thick in places - representing 33,500 to 67,000 years of plant accumulation! The picture below is the Foord seam at the Stellarton coal mine, which is fixing subsidence issues caused by 200 years of pick-and-shovel mining, including bootleg mines. The mine is reclaiming the site and making it safe to develop.

The following letter from MANS is in today's Chronicle Herald: WE NEED GOLD, AND IT'S BETTER TO MINE IT HERE Gold mining in Nova Scotia is creating hundreds of ...jobs for Nova Scotians, mainly in rural areas. One gold mine opened in 2017, four are in the permitting process and there is a lot of exploration and investment taking place. Mining and quarrying is Nova Scotia’s highest-paying resource industry. According to StatsCan, our average total compensation (wages plus benefits) is $87,000 per year. An entry-level job like haul truck driver pays an average of $25 per hour. The global interest in Nova Scotia’s potential for gold is supporting families, creating opportunities for our young people to stay here instead of moving away, and generating government revenues to help pay for programs like health and education. Modern mining is a sophisticated, science-based activity that takes proper care of the environment. Nova Scotia mines are stringently regulated by the provincial and federal governments. Before getting operating permits, companies must get government approval of reclamation plans and post-reclamation bonds (money is escrow, basically) that ensure funds are available to properly take care of sites. Reclamation returning sites to nature or preparing them for their next use after mining is done is a fundamental part of the modern mining process. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for reclaiming modern mines and the regulatory regime ensures they won’t be. Mining companies are required by law to monitor and test water at mines and report back to the provincial Department of the Environment. Water is usually recycled on-site to reduce the overall amount that an operation draws from local sources. Water released back into a river or lake is usually cleaner after it has been used in a mine or quarry than it was beforehand. Modern mines even sometimes fix issues with historical sites by cleaning up tailings or stabilizing land that was left unusable by the pick-and-shovel mining of the distant past. For example, the Moose River gold mine has cleaned up historical tailings and the Point Aconi mine reclamation project fixed subsidence issues caused by historical bootleg coal mining. We all use gold every day. Its unique properties make it essential in all sophisticated electronics like phones, computers and medical equipment. It is used to diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, HIV, arthritis and autoimmune diseases. Because it is biocompatible our bodies do not react negatively to it gold is used in surgical instruments like scalpels, pacemakers and heart stents, and in dentistry. It is even used in many rapid Covid tests. Gold is expensive so we only use it when there are not other viable options. It’s an essential material. Minerals contribute to everything in our daily lives. If we don’t mine the minerals we need in a stringently-regulated Western democracy like Canada, more mining will have to be done in jurisdictions that do not take proper care of the environment, workers and communities. Protecting the environment and ensuring ethical sourcing of essential materials like gold means doing more mining here, not less. You can learn more about modern mining on our educational web site at www.NotYourGrandfathersMining.ca. We also do daily educational social media posts about mining, minerals and geology. Nova Scotia’s mining industry is creating jobs and opportunity for Nova Scotians while taking excellent care of the environment. https://www.thechronicleherald.ca//sean-kirby-we-need-gol/

Nova Scotia’s first documented gold discovery was in 1858 in Mooseland. The Moose River gold mine is currently Nova Scotia’s only operating gold mine but ther...e are several more in the permitting process. Another moose played a role in Nova Scotia’s gold mining history: Moosehead, Halifax County. Gold was discovered in Moosehead (aka Shiers Point) in 1873 when a 20-inch quartz vein containing gold was found. This was presumably the Hulk lead, which produced five ounces of gold from 12 tons of quartz in 1874; a good rate but only a small amount of mining. A mill was built in 1880 but it was not until 1889 that mining really began. A 46-metre shaft was sunk and another 238 ounces were produced. Unfortunately, a forest fire in June 1890 burned down the mill, boarding house and barn and the mine was closed. The company started to rebuild in 1891 but another fire in July of that year destroyed the rebuilt mill, and the company had had enough. The mine was idle until it was operated by the Boston and Goldenville Gold Mining Company from 1910-13. This operation produced another 240 ounces from the Main Shaft and a series of smaller shafts along the strike. In 1914 and 1915, the Moosehead Reduction Company sank a new 27-metre shaft on the Norrie Lead. The Norrie Lead is likely a faulted extension of the Hulk Lead found, meaning they were actually the same lead but geological activity split it in two and separated the two sides. A fault is a fracture, or zone of fractures, between two blocks of rock. Faults are caused by geological forces like tectonic plate movement and they allow the blocks of rock to move relative to each other. In the case of the Hulk/Norrie Lead, it was split by the fault and the two sides ended up east and west of each other. Moosehead is located between the larger-producing Harrigan Cove and Ecum Secum Gold Districts. The Hulk/Norrie vein at Moosehead is likely a continuation of one of the Harrigan Cove veins. It may also be connected to Ecum Secum veins, though this is not proven. The last gold production at the Moosehead mine was in 1915. In total, Moosehead produced 509 ounces of gold from 3408 tons of ore. In 1933, J. H. Thompson and Ventures Ltd. carried out prospecting and dewatered Moosehead’s shafts. They recommended an exploration program but there is no evidence that it ever took place. Moosehead was also studied in the 1980s by a company that was doing exploration in nearby Harrigan Cove but no real exploration occurred at Moosehead. There has been sporadic exploration at the site since. As with many historical Nova Scotia gold mines, mining did not end because the resource was depleted. Other factors were often the cause of gold mines shutting down, including inefficient historical mining and milling techniques, lack of capital, lack of access to inexpensive electricity, challenges associated with transporting equipment and supplies through the wilderness, and lack of labour (miners were sometimes drawn to other jurisdictions by reports of riches being made. Also, the first and second world wars made it difficult to hire men). Moosehead is therefore seen as having potential to be returned to production in the modern era since all of the above challenges are now easily addressed. In fact, almost all the activity in Nova Scotia’s gold sector is at historical mines where deposits were proven during our early gold rushes but modern science and technology make it possible to mine profitably while, of course, taking proper care of the environment.

our next NL GAC - AGS webinar is Thursday Oct. 8th at 1:30pm AST (& 2 pm NT) - All Welcome! Jean-Luc Pilote (GSC & MUN) will present on ; "From slab melting to sulphide remobilization and everything in between: an overview of the evolution of the Ming VMS system"... Mark your calendars!