SEG - Society of Economic Geologists

JULY 2012 • No 90 SEG NEWSLETTER 39
Dalhousie University Student Chapter
Field Trip to the PotashCorp
and Xstrata Mines
On February 2, five students from the
Dalhousie University SEG student chapter
embarked on a two-day trip from
Halifax, Nova Scotia, to visit the Potash
Corp potash mine in Sussex, NB, followed
by a visit to the Pb-Zn mine outside
Bathurst, NB. The trip was undertaken
in conjunction with a group of 15
engineering students and two instructors
from the Mineral and Resource Engineer -
ing Department at DAL; this is a yearly
trip for the engineering students and we
were very pleased to be invited along.
While much of trip was geared more
toward the engineering aspects of mining,
both mines had geologists on staff.
Our trip began at 3 a.m. in order to
time our arrival at Sussex with a shift of
workers going down the mine shaft. The
entire group was allowed underground
A group of students, geologists, and engineers
pose underground at PotashCorp in Sussex,
NB.
in a single shift and were taken on a
guided truck tour of the different areas
of the mine, where we were allowed to
leave the vehicles and explore a bit.
The following morning we again had
an early start at the Xstrata-owned
Brunswick mine, arriving at 7 a.m. to
coincide with a scheduled shift change.
The mine is currently in a winding-down
phase with plans to cease major operations
in early 2013 after 49 years of production
in one of the largest underground
mining operations in the world.
We thank the SEG and the DAL Earth
Sciences department who provided us
with significant funding in order to
undertake this. We also thank Dr. Don
Jones and Dr. John Hill, from the DAL
Mineral and Resource Engineering department,
the leaders of the trip, for planning
and coordinating trip activities, as
well as the engineering students who
attended. Finally, we thank PotashCorp
and Xstrata for arranging these guided
tours and allowing us to visit. 1
Contributed by Kyle Landry
SEG
www.segweb.org
STUDENT NEWS
The University of Nevada, Reno Student Chapter
Field Trip to Turkey
The University of Nevada, Reno student
chapter recently completed an 11-day
field trip through western Turkey. The
focus of the trip was on exploring a relatively
new and diverse metallogenic
province that before the early 1990s
was not open to foreign companies. We
visited three producing mines and two
exploration projects with a variety of
deposit types that included porphyry
Cu-Au, porphyry Au, and epithermal
Au-Ag. We also visited several historic
sites, including the ancient city of Troy
and the Roman ruins at Pergamon.
After flying to Istanbul and enjoying
a day of sightseeing the group took a
ferry across the Sea of Marmara to the
town of Bandirma, and then drove west
to Çanakkale, on the banks of the Dar -
danelles. The next morning we headed
southeast toward Teck Resources’ Halilağa
porphyry Cu-Au exploration project. We
were greeted by the staff and taken to
several outcrops to look at the leached
capping of the porphyry system. When
we returned the staff had laid out four
complete drill holes so that we could
see the classic porphyry alteration zoning
and mineralization of the deposit.
Our next stop was down the coast of
the Aegean to Bergama. After the standard
Turkish breakfast of olives, salami,
yogurt, and bread, we headed just outside
of town to the Ovacık gold mine.
Field trip participants tour Kişladağ, Tüprag’s porphyry-Au system in Uşak, Turkey.
Ovacık is a low-sulfidation epithermal
system and was the first gold mine in
the region to be discovered by modern
exploration techniques. After leaving
Ovacık we headed back into Bergama to
visit the Roman ruins at Pergamon.
Next, we headed off to the Efemçukuru
low-sulfidation epithermal deposit
owned by the Turkish subsidiary of
Eldorado Gold, Tüprag. Our next tour
was the Au porphyry system Kişladağ,
which is located about 1 hour southwest
of the town of Uşak. Also owned
by Tüprag, Kişladağ is the largest gold
mine in Turkey, with an annual production
of ~250,000 oz. Mineralization
is hosted within a set of four nested
alkali porphyritic intrusions that cut a
series of quartz latite lava flows and volcaniclastics.
Next, we drove northeast
toward the Akarca project, a low-sulfidation
epithermal system owned by
Eurasian Minerals and Centera Gold.
The deposit is located within Miocene
to Pliocene basin sediments which overlie
Paleozoic schists, limestones, and
Paleocene granites.
We thank our sponsors and industry
participants who covered the student
costs and made it possible for us to go
on this amazing trip. 1
Contributed by Tyler Baril