Hants County Nova Scotia, Canada
West Gore Property
Status: Past producer of antimony
- Location: The West Gore Property spans four (4) exploration licenses covering 585 hectares in Hants County, Nova Scotia, Canada
- Ownership: These licenses encompass the southern portion of the former West Gore Sb-Au mine, a site active in the late 1920s primarily for antimony extraction.
- Historical Significance: The last comprehensive geological survey was conducted in 1939.
West Gore Property
Hants County Nova Scotia, Canada
HISTORY
Key historical milestones:
- 1883: Antimony discovered on John MacDougall’s farm, leading to extensive trenching and the first mining operations.
- 1889: New shafts sunk on parallel leads; discovery of auriferous ore increased its value.
- 1900-1908: High-production era under the Dominion Antimony Company, including shaft deepening and a brief operation of a concentrating mill.
- 1917: Production halted due to the sinking of a concentrate-carrying ship, a significant economic blow.
- Late 19th Century: Unverified reports of 19,200 oz of gold from 18,000 tons of ore.
- 1940s-1960s: Reports indicated significant material on waste/tailings dumps, including 1.2M pounds of antimony and 2,528 oz of gold.
Key Points
- Between the mid-1880s and World War I, West Gore in Hants County was home to an antimony and gold mine. During the war, it became Canada’s largest antimony producer.
- In 1910-1911, the West Gore Antimony Company processed over 7,500 tons of ore from the dumps, shipping nearly 400 tons of concentrate overseas for smelting.
- Operations resumed from 1915-1917, with underground expansions. Over 35,000 tons of ore were milled, yielding 7,761 tons of concentrate with 46% antimony content.
Geology of West Gore
- The mineralization is largely composed of stibnite, native antimony, Sb-Au alloys, and phases in vein quartz with Fe, As, Pb, Zn, Cu sulfides.
- Veins were localized in brittle-ductile environments, related to the regional Cobequid-Chedabucto fault system.
- The mineralizing fluids likely originated during the Acadian orogeny, contemporaneous with felsic and mafic magmatic activity.
Historical drilling information
Since production ceased in 1917 six exploration drilling programs have taken place.
| Year | Operator | Drill Holes |
|---|---|---|
|
1958 |
Canadian Alumina Corp. |
5 |
|
1964 |
Talisman Mines |
6 |
|
1974 |
NS Dept. of Natural Resources |
16 |
|
1985 |
Durham Resources |
19 |
|
1987 |
Durham Resources |
6 |
|
2013 |
Great Atlantic Resources |
2 |
Drillhole collar information for the 1964 Talisman Holes was recovered without the logs and geochemical analyses. Additionally, drilling by the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources was done for informational purposes and no geochemical samples were taken.
