Facts on Minerals There Is One Metal Refinery/Smelter in Fort Quick Facts Saskatchewan, Producing Nickel and Cobalt

April 2009

Facts on minerals There is one metal refinery/smelter in Fort Quick facts Saskatchewan, producing nickel and cobalt. Toothpaste, buildings, eyeglasses, computers, Exploration work continues for diamonds, gold, automobiles and hospital equipment are but a platinum group metals, uranium, zinc, lead and other few of the many things that cannot be made minerals. without minerals. Mining is the prime industry in over 150 The future Canadian communities and directly employs one Alberta is considered relatively unexplored ground in in 40 Canadians. the mineral exploration world. Lack of discovery of Alberta is the cement-manufacturing hub for the other minerals is partly due to a lack of good Prairie provinces. There are two major plants, geoscience and mapping relevant to these kinds of one near Exshaw (west of Calgary) and the other minerals. in Edmonton. Other minerals produced or potentially available Exploration work to date suggests the potential for in Alberta include metallic minerals, precious uranium in northeastern and southwest Alberta; stones, industrial minerals and stone. lead, zinc and copper in northern Alberta; iron in the Peace River area; and diamonds in north-central The past Alberta. Alberta’s transportation and utilities Archeological evidence suggests that in North infrastructure, along with northern areas already America, minerals such as copper and silver were opened up for oil and gas exploration, are favourable mined and traded by First Nations peoples over for mineral exploration and development, even in 6,000 years ago, long before Europeans arrived in fairly remote areas. North America. Expeditions lead by early explorers in Canada often included mineral exploration work. Alberta’s non-energy minerals Coal and building stone were the first minerals mined in large quantities in Alberta. Ammonite Ammonites are members of the cephalopod class, The present which includes nautilus, squid, octopus and Non-energy minerals quarried and mined in Alberta cuttlefish. The coloured shell of the ammonite first today include limestone, sandstone and other generated interest among Alberta mineral collectors building stone, salt, iron and magnetite, gold and in the 1970s and a significant Alberta industry soon ammonite shell. Five major quarries currently exist in developed to produce ammonite shell jewellery. Alberta. Diamonds Alberta also has hundreds of sand and gravel pits of Diamonds are a hard, compact and natural various sizes. Some sand and gravel is washed for crystalline form of carbon, colourless when pure but placer minerals, such as gold and platinum, before sometimes coloured by traces of impurities. One of being used for construction, fill and cement the world's hardest-known substances, diamonds manufacturing. Salt in Alberta is recovered by are used for cutting tools and drill bits, and as solution mining. Water is pumped down wells to decorative gemstones. dissolve the salt and the resulting salt brine is pumped to the surface. The discovery of commercial quantities of diamonds

www.energy.alberta.ca 1 in the Northwest Territories in the early 1990s include use in oil sands operations and in generated significant interest in exploring for the landscaping. mineral in Alberta. Since that time, many diamond- bearing kimberlites have been discovered in north Other building stone central Alberta, but the deposits are too deep and/or Small quantities of other stone are produced for use too small to be economical to mine. Exploration for a in buildings and limestone. mineable deposit continues. Salt Gold A residue of ancient seas covering parts of Alberta Gold is an extremely malleable bright yellow metal at various times, salt is produced in significant that is extracted from ores and hardened by being quantities from four brining operations in east- combined in alloys with silver or copper. It is used in central Alberta. coins, jewellery and dentistry, and gold compounds are used in photography and medicine. While salt is probably best known for table salt and road salt, most salt produced in Alberta is used for In Alberta, gold is almost always found as tiny chemical production and in the pulp industry. particles mixed with streambed deposits of sand and gravel; these deposits are called placers. Sand and gravel and other aggregate Prospectors have been searching for placer gold in the river systems of north-central Alberta since the The last glaciers deposited much of Alberta’s sand mid-1800s. and gravel, which is mainly used in cement making and as construction aggregate for roads, buildings

and other large structures. Gravels such as “Alberta Industrial minerals rainbow rock” are also used for decorative purposes Industrial minerals encompass a wide range of in landscaping, while clay and shale are used to minerals, mainly non-metallic, which are used in make bricks and other ceramic products. Bentonite agriculture, the natural resource sector, clay, the swelling type, is used for drilling mud in the manufacturing and chemical processes. oil and gas sector in Alberta.

Iron and magnetite Sulphur Iron is a base metal. Magnetite is a magnetic form of Sulphur is a common by-product of oil sands and iron ore. A quarry between Calling Lake and natural gas production in Alberta. This bright yellow Wabasca started producing 40 to 45 tonnes of iron powder, seen in stockpiles around the province and per year in 2004. This iron product is used as a at the Vancouver port, is used in making fertilizers feedstock for making cement. and other industrial products.

Limestone Limestone (calcium carbonate) is quarried at Cadomin, Exshaw and in the Crowsnest Pass and processed in giant kilns to produce cement and chemical lime. It is used in a wide range of products, from cement to fertilizer. Other uses for limestone