Reader Rebuttal (August 01, 2000)

Pleased by Peripheral Topics

Just thought I’d mention how much I’ve enjoyed reading your editorials. It’s refreshing to see you cover topics peripheral to most things about mining, such as fathers, and smoking in the workplace. It underlines the human part of the industry.

Rob Boyce, Mine Geologist

Eskay Creek Mine Smithers, B.C.

Heath Steele Not First Aerial Survey Find

Contrary to what was written in the article on Heath Steele in the June/July 2000 issue of CMJ, this was not “the first mine ever to be discovered by aerial survey”. It may well have been the first base metal mine discovered using airborne electromagnetic techniques, but as detailed in Geology and Economic Minerals of Canada (Fourth Edition – 1957; edited by C.H. Stockwell) there is claimant for earlier honours in a more general sense.

The magnetite skarn deposit at Marmora, in eastern Ontario, “was discovered beneath 125 feet of early Palaeozoic limestone in 1950 when an aeromagnetic anomaly was drilled by Bethlehem Mines Corporation… Mining began in 1955 after removing 20 million tons of the overlying limestone.”

Giles R. Peatfield, PhD, PEng Consulting Geologist, Vancouver