Maxwell Brucite Mine
Location, Access, Description
The Maxwell Property of Globex is located in the Outaouais Region of Quebec Province, in the town of Wakefield, within Hull and Wakefield townships. It is around 15 km linear northwest from Chelsea (Qc) and 25 km north-west from Ottawa (On). The property is composed of four (4) contiguous claims totalling 126.61 ha in Hull and Wakefield Townships. Claims are fully held by Globex and are not subject to any third part interests.
One can easily access to the Maxwell Property by driving about 25 minutes on “Highway 5 North” (“Autoroute de la Gatineau”) and provincial “Road 105” from Ottawa / Gatineau. The property hosts both the closed Maxwell Mine and the old Morrison’s quarry. Part of the site was flooded after the end of production and is presently used as a leisure center where you can swim and practice bungee-jumping.
The area of the property shows a fairly flat relief, with altitudes varying between 110 to 220m. These reliefs are essentially of anthropic origin, due to the digging and waste piles from the Morrison’s Quarry and Maxwell Mine.
The Maxwell Property is located near several major cities and therefore enjoys quick access to a large selection of contractors and amenities. Remote workers can easily be accommodated at Wakefield.
Geology and Mineralization
Regional Settings
The property lies within the Grenville Province of the Canadien Shield, slightly north of the contact with the paleozoïc sedimentary Saint-Laurent Platform. The Grenville Province is the youngest precambrian geological Province in Quebec (Hocq, 1994), dated to the Upper Proterozoïc. The Grenville Province is characterized by a high degree of HT metamorphism which reached the granulite facies around 1 020 – 1 090 Ma (Rivers et al., 2012). Rocks are therefore mainly made of paragneiss, orthogneiss, migmatites, amphibolites, marbles, quartzites, and felsic to ultramafic intrusives which form the Grenville Supergroup (Chiarenzelli et al., 2015).
The Grenville Supergroup is cross-cutted by a magmatic complex of syenite – monzonite including those of Gracefield and Mont-Laurier which have been dated between 1 076 and 1 089 Ma (Corriveau and Gorton, 1987). The Wakefield Batholith is believed to be part of that complex (DP 461 ; MB 94-39), and is associated to a contact metamorphism responsible of the formation of brucite-rich deposits (Hogarth, 1970).
Minor magmatism associated with the appearance of carbonatite dykes occurred at 1 026 – 1 028 Ma and seems to mark the end of the Grenvillian orogeny (Hogarth and van Breemen, 1996).
Property Geology
The Maxwell Property is composed of archean to proterozoïc metasedimentary and intrusive rocks of the Grenville Supergroup, dated from 1.3 to 1.2 Ga, and of syenite of the Wakefield Batholith. According to Dupuy (1989), two types of gneiss are present in the vicinity of the property ; 1) some leucocrate gneiss composed of medium-sized grains of quartz and feldspath with alkaline feldspath porphyroblasts, and 2) some melanocrate gneiss composed of quartz, feldspath, biotite, hornblende, and local garnets.
The Wakefield syenite is composed of feldspath phenocrystals floating in a fine to medium-grained feldspathic matrix containing little biotite, apatite, titanite, magnetite and traces of quartz (MB 89-18).
Numerous pegmatite and lamprophyre dikes cut the Wakefield Batholith and the metasediments of the Grenville Supergroup (MB 89-18). On the property, paragneiss, orthogneiss, migmatites, brucitic marbles, syenite and diabase rocks are mostly recovered by quaternary deposits made of till, silts, sands and gravel.
Metallogeny
The Outaouais region hosts numerous non metallic deposits of calcite, brucite, feldspath, apatite, mica, tungsten and diopside. The Wakefield area is particularily rich in Brucite deposits. Brucite is a Mg-rich hydroxyde usually formed during metasomatism of Mg-rich limestones or serpentinization of ultramafic rocks. It’s therefore frequently associated with other Mg-rich minerals as dolomite, magnesite, talc or chrysotile. In the vicinity of Wakefield, brucitic marble occurs as isolated deposits surrounded by syenite, and are typically associated with pyroxenite, diopside and calcitic marble (GM 44434).
A total of 4 418 000t of unknown grade brucitic (±calcite ±serpentine) ore has been extracted by Aluminium Company of Canada from both Maxwell and Cross Mines between 1941 and 1967. The Cross Mine is located 2.5km south-east from Maxwell Mine. The hostrock is a crystalline marble hosted in a syenite. Brucitic marble forms horizons containing up to 30% brucite in shreds of marble isolated within the Wakefield syenite (MB 89-18). Public data of Sigeom suggests a remaining Historical Resource of 948 000t of brucitic marble in the Maxwell Mine (DV 85-08).
More recently, Legault et al. (MB 2022-01) identified a NE-trending carbonatite dyke with anomalous Rare Earth Elements (REE) content, located immediately south of the property which is definitely adding to the economic potential of Globex’s Maxwell Property.
History
The Maxwell prospect was discovered by prospecting in 1938 then production started only three (3) years later. Not much details on the annual tonnage and grades are available in the public data, and production of both Maxwell and Cross Mines has been merged together so it’s not possible at that point to determine the exact production of the Maxwell Mine. Total production for both Maxwell and Cross Mines is 4 418 000t of unknown grade brucitic (±calcite ±serpentine) ore (DV 85-08). According to the aerial images, the Maxwell Mine topographic footprint seems around three times bigger than the Cross Mine’s one.
In an inspection report dated from 1965 (GM 16997) mentioned the fact that no extraction has been done for several years on the Maxwell deposit, whereas 30 000t of ore were still extracted by Aluminium Company of Canada each month from the Cross Mine. That report mentioned though, that diamond drilling holes were still in progress on the Maxwell site. No DDH information is however listed in the public data of Sigeom.
A little sampling program was realised in 1977 by Géomines Ltée on behalf of SOQUEM and returned up to 23.31% MgO, 0.25% Al2O3 and 0.24% Fe2O3 in brucitic dolomite of the Maxwell Mine (Géomines Ltée, 1977). At that point the author described two quarries at least 125 ft deep.
No geophysical work is available in the public data over the Wakefield area, except of the Federal Government’s low-resolution magnetic survey. On that survey we can observe that the Wakefield syenite is characterized by magnetic highs whereas most of the mines and deposits of the area are located within low magnetic units which could be due to the alteration of the hostrocks. A high-resolution magnetic survey could possibly identify brucitic-altered horizons within marbles.
In 2021, Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests (MNRF) undertook a sampling campaign of carbonatite dikes in the Outaouais area (MB 2022-01) and identified a REE-anomalous carbonatite dyke passing just south of the Maxwell Property.
Resources and Potential
The Maxwell Property has a rich past as a brucite producer. Rocks grading up to 30% brucite were historically extracted from marbles of the Grenville Supergroup at the Maxwell Mine. The exact Maxwell Mine production is not known but public data mentions a total of 4 418 000t of unknown grade brucitic (±calcite ±serpentine) ore extracted by Aluminium Company of Canada from both Maxwell and Cross Mines between 1941 and 1967.
Official data from the Quebec Government show remaining resources of 948 000t of brucitic marble in the Maxwell Mine.
In addition to the economic potential of the property, recent works by the MNRF showed the existence of a REE-anomalous carbonatite dyke lying not far south of the Maxwell Property.
It’s therefore recommended to fly a high-resolution magnetic survey then plan a prospection program with systematic sampling on the whole Maxwell Property in order to:
§ Highlight brucite-altered horizons within marbles ;
§ Highlight possible carbonatite rocks with REE potential ;
§ Verify the presence of both brucitic and REE anomalies in the outcropping rocks.