Location | |
---|---|
Location | Thompson |
Province | Manitoba |
Country | Canada |
Coordinates | 55°42′06″N097°55′37″W / 55.70167°N 97.92694°W |
Production | |
Products | Nickel |
History | |
Opened | 1965 |
Active | 1965 - 1978 1988 - 2017 |
Closed | 2017 |
Owner | |
Company | Vale Inco |
Website | Vale Inco |
Birchtree Mine is an underground nickel mine, owned and operated by Vale Inco in the city of Thompson, Manitoba, Canada. [1] It lies in the nickel containing Thompson Belt, a geologic feature associated with the Circum-Superior Belt large igneous province throughout the Superior craton.
Birchtree mine originally opened in 1965 until 1978 when it was put in "standby" until 1988. [1] The mine reopened again in 1989. [2] In 2000, Inco authorized US$48 million [3] to deepen the mine to 4,100 feet (1,250 m), expanding production to 3,800 tons per day. [1] The Deepening Project allowed Inco to access ore between the 3950 level and 2300 level. In 2002, [4] Birchtree Mine started producing ore from between 2750 level and 2300 level. In 2003, the first ore was extracted between the 3950 and 3450 level.
In 2005, Birchtree mine was the recipient of the John T. Ryan Trophy for having achieving the lowest accident frequency of all Canadian metal mines. In 2008, it received the regional John T. Ryan trophy for the Prairies & Northwest Territories.
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The Circum-Superior Belt is a widespread Paleoproterozoic large igneous province in the Canadian Shield of Northern, Western and Eastern Canada. It extends more than 3,400 km (2,100 mi) from northeastern Manitoba through northwestern Ontario, southern Nunavut to northern Quebec and into western Labrador. Igneous rocks of the Circum-Superior Belt are mafic-ultramafic in composition, deposited in the Labrador Trough near Ungava Bay, the Cape Smith Belt near the southern shore of Hudson Strait and along the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in its northern portion; the Thompson and Fox River belts in the northwest and the Marquette Range Supergroup in its southern portion. The Circum Superior Belt also hosts a rare example of Proterozoic Komatiite, in the Winnipegosis komatiite belt.
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