Keeley-Frontier Mine is a large abandoned mine in the

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

of Silver Centre,

Northeastern Ontario Northeastern Ontario is a secondary region of Northern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario, which lies north of Lake Huron and east of Lake Superior. Northeastern Ontario consists of the districts of Algoma, Sudbury, Cochrane, Timisk ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It consists of two underground mines that were sunk below the surface. Keeley Mine was discovered in 1907 while Frontier Mine was constructed in 1921. The 8th level of the Keeley Mine connected with the 6th level of the Frontier Mine in 1962, creating the two compartment Keeley-Frontier Mine. In 1965, Keeley-Frontier Mine closed with a total production of of

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

, of

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. ...

, of

nickel Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slo ...

and of

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

. Keeley-Frontier Mine is considered to have produced some of the finest silver wire specimens in Canada.http://www.themineralgallery.com/silver4.htm
/ref> Robert Jowsey, Charles Keeley, and John Woods discovered silver after they "lit a fire to thaw out the ground," according to Barnes.

Keeley Mine

The discovery in the Fall of 1907, involved the finding of a smaltite

vein Veins () are blood vessels in the circulatory system of humans and most other animals that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are those of the pulmonary and feta ...

2-6 inches wide containing 11,000 ounces of "wire silver" per ton. "Wood's vein" was discovered the next year. The original vein was developed by the No. 1 shaft and by 1911, Keeley Mine Limited had produced about 24,337 ounces of silver. Associated Gold Mines of Western Australia, Limited, acquired an option on the property in 1913, and a transfer of the property by 1919. The mine produced 12,154,353 ounces of silver and 1,617,784 ounces of cobalt from 1908 to 1942. No production took place between 1943 and 1963. Keeley-Frontier Mines Limited was incorporated in 1959 and reorganized as Kelley-Frontier in 1964.

Frontier Mine

Henry Newburger bought the property from the Haileybury Silver Mining Company, and formed the Haileybury Frontier Company in 1912. Newburger's death in 1914 put a stop to further development until 1920 when the Mining Corporation of Canada, Limited, acquired an option with a final purchase in 1921. The mine produced 7,043,060 ounces of silver, 1,692,772 ounces of cobalt, 25,516 ounces of nickel and 10,292 ounces of copper from 1921 to 1965.

Geology

The silver is located in three main vein systems associated with

reverse fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic f ...

s. These vein systems are known as Wood's, No. 16 and No. 28. Most of the silver production occurs in the 300 feet of metavolcanics overlying the

Nipissing sills The Nipissing sills, also called the Nipissing diabase, is a large 2217– to 2210–million year old group of sill (geology), sills in the Superior craton of the Canadian Shield in Ontario, Canada, which intrude the Huronian Supergroup. Nipissi ...

References

{{reflist Silver mines in Canada Cobalt mines in Canada Nickel mines in Canada Copper mines in Ontario

Keeley Mine

Frontier Mine

Geology

See also

References