During the 1947 field season the northern portion of the Camsell River Map area was mapped at a scale of two miles to one inch, by W. H. Parsons and the writer for the Geological Survey of Canada, the southern portion of the area having been completed the previous year by C. S. Lord (15) This paper deals with the northwest quarter of the "Camsell River Map Sheet" because of its geological end economical importance.

During the latter part of the 1949 field season, the author served as geologist on a California Standard Company field party which was sent to the Northwest Territories to make an examination of the Upper Devonian limestone strata exposed along the Hay river. The objects of this survey were: (1) to further the completion of the California Standard Company's geological map of possible "petroleum bearing formations in northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories, and, (2) to attempt a correlation of the Hay River limestone formation with the petroliferous limestones underlying Leduc, Alberta. The thesis of this paper is a detailed description of the Hay River limestone formation as it is exposed along the Hay river.

The area to be described is situated in Labrador (latitude 54° 52' N., longitude 66° 30' W.) on the concession of Labrador Mining and Exploration Company. It lies just west of Timmins Bay, Attikamagen Lake, and covers an approximately rectangular area of a little less than 2-1/2 square miles. (See map, page 4). The area is accessible from Knob Lake using the Company’s seaplanes, the distance being approximately 12 miles eastward.

Extending eastward from the Sault Ste. Marie area of Ontario, along the north shore of Lake Huron, thence northeastward through the Sudbury and Lake Wanapitei areas, to the Gowganda and Cobalt areas and on into the Province of Quebec, there is a belt of Algonkian rocks of Huronian age. They consist for the most part of clastic Sediments, quartzites, arkoses, greywackes, conglomerates and possibly tillites, with minor amounts of limestone and volcanic extrusive rocks. The rocks of this belt have been the subject of much study and many reports.

During the summer of 1949 the writer was engaged by the Labrador Mining and Exploration Company of Montreal on a survey party mapping an area in central Labrador and, in particular, a band of iron-bearing formation that runs through it. In the winter of the same year a petrographic study of the formation was undertaken at McGill University, by the writer, and is the subject of this thesis. The iron formation lies between the lakes Snelgrove, to the south east, and Comeback, to the north, both of which are situated within the Dyke Lake Sheet and lie in the concession of the above-mentioned company.

The Waco Lake Area was geologically mapped by Dr. Roger Blais with the writer acting as senior assistant, during the summer of 1954. The mapping was done on a scale of one mile to the inch, from systematic traverses spaced at every half mile. The work was done for the Quebec Department of Mines in four months, and covered an expanse of over 350 square miles. During the course of the summer, many basic intrusives were found. The structural relationships between these bodies and an anorthosite mass known to exist to the east were studied.

Many orebodies have been formed in low temperature environments, distant from any known source and beyond the influence of ground water. These facts imply that ore metals travel in some way from a source to the places where they are found. Various theories have been put forward which purport to explain how this may happen. Because metals and their common silicates and sulphides are, with a few exceptions, volatile only at temperatures considerably above the temperatures at which epithermal deposits are thought to form, most theories postulate the presence of water to act as a moving flux in which the ore constituents are carried along.

All geological processes taking place at the surface of the earth are either influenced or caused by the energy relations between the sun, the surface of the earth, and the atmosphere. Since the surface and atmosphere, unlike the sun, cannot be divorced from the effects of surface geological processes, it follows that these processes, in turn, affect the energy relations between the earth and atmosphere. In short, there is a relationship between geological and atmospheric phenomena which is of utmost importance in both geology and paleoclimatology.

Pyrochlore has been found in many localities and promises to be an important source of niobium. Betafite is also widespread in occurrence and has been mined intermittently in Madagascar as a minor uranium ore; in other localities it does not seem to occur in economic quantities. Although several independent studies of betafite and pyrochlore have been undertaken, the relationship of the one mineral to the other is not clear. The X-ray powder patterns of pyrochlore and ignited betafite are very similar although usually not identical. However, the chemical compositions are quite different.

The town of Buchans is four miles north of Red Indian Lake, in about the centre or Newfoundland, lat. 48° 50'W; long. 56° 46'W (see fig.1). The Buchans Mining Company Limited is a subsidiary of the American Smelting and Refining Company. The mineral rights are leased from Terra Nova Properties Limited, which is a subsidiary of the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company Ltd. The town of Buchans is linked to the Canadian National Railway line at Millertown Junction by a private single-track line. This was the only means of ground transport to Buchans until a road to the Trans-Canada highway was completed in 1955.