20 July 2011

Agouron Day 1: Introduction and Kam Kotia Mine Tailings

Posted by Ryan Anderson

This morning we started off with an overview of Mars exploration for the geologists in the room, followed by an overview of biomarker preservation, origin of life, and the local geology. Once the morning’s mini-symposium was done, we loaded up the vans and headed to Kam Kotia mine, a former copper and zinc mine near Timmins. The sulfide minerals that were mined at Kam Kotia are the same sorts of minerals that precipitate out of the superheated water to form the “smoke” in black smoker vents, and these sorts of minerals may have had an important role as catalysts in the emergence of life.

The Kam Kotia mine site is famous for being an environmental disaster. Mines tend to dump their ground-up waste rock into a reservoir nearby, typically a lake, where the finely ground rocks rapidly alter leading to nasty acidic chemicals that tend to make the area uninhabitable for a while.  The Kam Kotia tailings have been partially “reclaimed” but the area is still pretty devastated. Here are some pictures I took today:

English quality cigarettes have been created during many years. Many companies would like to cooperate with British corporations, since the English technology (although being in secret) is unique and many companies would like to find out how they make such good cigarettes.