Ivigtut is located in Southwest Greenland, halfway up the Arsuk Fjord on the southern shore at the northern side of the Ivigtut peninsula, which is a plateau of 300-600m elevation crossed by two NE-trending ridges enclosing Blokdalen, the main central valley. Bedrock is exposed almost everywhere and there is little or no vegetation, other than scrub in the lower coastal cirques. In the valley of Ivigtut (which in Greenlandic means the grass rich place), there are outcrops of bedrock in more moderate amounts.
The current reserve is 2.5 million tons of quartz with potential of 6.2 million tons. It is estimated that fines below 20mm will be approx. 15% of processed materials.Material above 96% quartz will be processed and sold.
NAMA intends to establish a JORC or NI 43-101 report to further support reserve estimate.
History
Cryolite is acknowledged to be a very rare commodity and Ivigtut, Greenland has been famous for its production. The Ivigtut mines has had a long and productive history extending over 135 years from 1855 to 1990.
- 1855 – 1859 Galena Mine
- 1847 – 1865 Cryolite discovered and tested
- 1865 – 1968 Main mining period producing Cryolite
- 1968 – 1983 Existing stock piles sold
- 1983 – 1987 Pit reopened
- 1987 – 1991 Some existing sales from stock pile and dumps
Geology
- The Ivigtut granite is slightly elliptical shaped intruded granite which has a diameter of up to 800m at depth and 300 metres on the surface. It has intruded into Archean granite and gneisses from the top of the granite (whose limits are still not determined).
- Two late stage brecciated cylindrical pipes arise one contains the cryolite body which occurs in a granite surrounded by a crush zone or Breccia.
- The second pipe called the Bunka breccia is much smaller and only consists of Breccia material to about 800 m below the surface.
Fluorite ore: The rock often contains more than 50% fluorite along with mica, topaz and weberite. While minor minerals found include cryolite, siderite, quartz sulphides (Fe, Pb, Cu), stenonite (Sr2AlCO3F5) and phosphate (CaAl2(F,OH)8), most of this unit remains at the bottom of the existing pit.
Siderite–cryolite–quartz ore: The coarse grained rock consists of siderite, cryolite and quartz with minor mica, topaz, sulphides (Pb, Cu, Zn, Fe and Ag).
Quartz:The lower section of the cryolite body consists of almost 90% quartz. It was not mined and probably is today the floor of the pit. Individual hand pieces of quartz assay 99.8% SiO2.
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