A Special Issue Devoted to the Mineral Deposits of the Sudbury Basin

Abstract

The magmatic Ni-Cu-platinum-group element (PGE) deposits in the Sudbury area were discovered in 1883 (Giblin, 1984). As Ni has grown from a chemical curiosity through early use in armor plating to its present-day pervasive role in modern industry, resources have continued to be discovered around the periphery of the Sudbury Igneous Complex and even richer ore zones have been identified in the footwall rocks, making Sudbury one of the world’s largest and most productive mining camps. The premining resource (production + current resource) of the Sudbury mining camp has been estimated to be >1,648 million metric tons at ~1.2 percent Ni and ~1.0 percent Cu (Naldrett and Lightfoot, 1993). As of 2000, the camp had produced 9.69 million metric tons of Ni, 9.59 million metric tons of Cu, 69.6 thousand metric tons of Co, 116 metric tons of Au, 319 metric tons of Pt, 335 metric tons of Pd, 37.6 metric tons of Rh, 23.3 metric tons of Ru, 11.5 metric tons of Ir, 3,710 metric tons of Ag, 3,002 metric tons of Se, and 256 metric tons of Te from 781 million metric tons of ore (Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, Information and Marketing Services Section, 2002). Sudbury remains one of the world’s largest producers of Ni, with an annual production of ~114 thousand metric tons, plus ~137 thousand metric tons of Cu, ~1.8 metric tons of Au, and ~11.4 metric tons of total platinum-group minerals (Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, Information and Marketing Services Section, 2000). Because of its great economic significance, the Sudbury basin has been studied intensively by local mining companies, federal and provincial survey geologists, and numerous university researchers. Landmark papers include the post-war synthesis by Stevenson (1963), the first recognition of the impact origin of the structure by Dietz …