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We love getting questions about #mining, #minerals and #geology! In response to our post yesterday about how #NovaScotia’s #gold deposits formed, we were asked about “barrel quartz.” Here’s our answer:
#nspoli #NS #CB #capebreton #Waverley @waverleyns @SteveStreatch @Bill_Horne
#nspoli #NS #CB #capebreton #Waverley @waverleyns @SteveStreatch @Bill_Horne
Barrel quartz is a term used to describe the #gold deposit on #LaidlawHill in #Waverley in the 1800s. It isn’t a technical/geological term. The miners used it to describe what they saw: folded, gold-bearing quartz veins whose outcrops are corrugated and resemble barrels.
#nspoli
#nspoli
The quartz veins that host the #gold are hard and surrounded by soft shale. When the rocks were compressed by forces resulting from tectonic plate collision, the quartz vein buckled to form barrel shapes but the surrounding shale reacted like toothpaste and absorbed the pressure.
