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.

The phase relations in the Fe-As-S system at 600°0, studied in rigid silica glass tubes where a vapor phase is always present, are as follows: a liquid field extends along the S-As join from 100 to 22.8 +/- 0.2 weight per cent sulfur. An extensive pyrite-liquid-vapor field and a narrower pyrrhotite-liquid-vapor field are separated by the four-phase region pyrite-pyrrhotite-liquid-vapor in which the composition of the liquid is, in weight per cent, approximately As = 62.5, S = 37.5, and Fe = 0.11. [...]

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 Chibougamau area lies just south of the 50th parallel and approximately 300 miles due north of Montreal. The area covered by map 304A of the Geological Survey of Canada (Mawdsley and Norman 1935) lies between latitudes 49°45'100" and 50°00'00" north and extends from longitudes 74°00'00" to 74°30'00" west.

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.

The purpose of the present work is to investigate the growth of authigenic feldspars in sediments, more specifically in shales. Authigenic feldspars have been discussed frequently in the literature, but most of these discussions have been descriptive, and little information as to their probable mode of origin has been published. [...]

Exothermic Reactions. The high temperatures sought in the experiments were produced by heat released from exothermic reactions. Two such reactions were used, that of thermite and that of silicon-ferric oxide. Thermite is a mixture of aluminum and iron oxide. Ferric oxide was used in the experiments because its reaction with aluminum releases more heat per gram of reactants than do those of ferrous oxide or magnetite. For complete reaction, the mixture should contain 54 parts of aluminum and 159.7 parts of ferric oxide by weight.

Processes of oxidation and secondary enrichment of sulphide minerals have challenged the minds of geologists, chemists and geochemists for over a century. In spite of extensive and varied investigations in the field and laboratory, the chemical mechanisms involved remain poorly understood. During the past decade, mainly through the pioneering work of Garrels (1960) and co-workers, the concept of thermodynamic mineral equilibria has been applied to reactions occurring in aqueous solutions at surface or near surface conditions. Mineral relationships in the zones of oxidation and supergene enrichment have been graphically portrayed by Garrels (1954) in Eh-pH diagrams by means of thermodynamic calculations following the methods of Pourbaix (1949).

This thesis is a study of phase equilibria among iron-rich silicate minerals in the metamorphic iron formations in the Cape Smith Belt, New Quebec, and is based on the chemical analyses of eight iron-rich silicate minerals. Mineral assemblages investigated include: grunerite-stilpnomelane, grunerite-stilpnomelane-almandite-biotite, stilpnomelane-minnesotaite-iron chlorite, all with quartz, magnetite, and calcite. Their stability relationships in the system FeO-MgO-Fe203-Al203-Si02-H20, during metamorphism are discussed.