Sunday, March 25, 2007

Anorthosite/labradorite

A nice little story about labradorite and the Ten Mile Bay anorthosite quarry just outside of Nain. There is another quarry at Iggiak that has been shut down for a couple of seasons for reasons I’m not familiar with, plus there are other deposits that have not been worked as yet.



These pictures were taken a couple of springs ago by B. Lyall. Some of the crew were on site readying for the summer operations.
There is a cutting plant in Hopedale operated by LIDC that cuts the larger blocks into smaller slabs for construction and for headstones and the like.

6 comments:

Paradise Driver said...

Brian, how warm does it get there in the summer?

Brian said...

To PD,

We don’t do summers as a rule ;-} At least not what most people would call summer.

What “summer” we do get is short and swift, July/August/early September.

Anything from 5c/40f to 30c/85f with the emphasis decidedly on the lower to mid/high teen’s c.

If we get lots of slow moving easterly flows then it stays cool for way too long.

The local flora has adapted well but any introduced plants take a beating. I always try to grow something but it gets very frustrating waiting for the results. It got so bad about 12 years ago I gave it up for several years. Some warmer summers got me back into it but we seem to be in a down cycle again.

Table Mountains said...

since were on the topic of growing things...: )

brian,does rhubarb grow well in nain? i know here it usually starts off in april most years.

Brian said...

Rhubarb grows well here, I do not have any.
There is a strain that was most likely brought over by the Moravian brothers, grows wild around some houses here up in the abandoned community of Okak. People from here go up on fishing/hunting/rhubarb trips in September. There are some big patches of it around the Moravian manse in Hopedale too.
I should try some this year.

dannytoro1 said...

Hello all,

I regularly read the Mining reports from the province(yes I know, get a better life). But in reference to Iggiak, there is nothing wrong with the Anothorsite there. The problem is the customer's preference for the shiny blue flecked variety of labradorite which is sold under the "blue Eye's" tradename. It's the hot number. Better blue flecked stone is found elsewhere.

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