Kirkland Lake and the Amazing World-Class Abitibi Gold Mining Belt – Orefinders CEO Stephen Stewart Interviews RepublicOfMining.com’s Stan Sudol (July 10, 2017)


The Abitibi is the largest Archean greenstone belt in the world. It’s roughly 150 km wide and starts just west of Timmins in Ontario – some say it starts in the Wawa camp – stretches for about 650 kms. in an east/west direction to Chibougamau, Quebec.

Since the first gold discovery in Timmins in 1909, the Abitibi has been the source of about 200 million ounces of gold and at least 35 billion pounds of zinc and 15 billion pounds of copper.

Both Ontario and Quebec have a number of significant mining camps.

Ontario (MNDM Statistics)

Timmins/Porcupine (Discoverd 1909)

73.3 million ounces of gold end of 2016.

Timmins district produced almost 1 million ounces of gold last year.

Kirkland Lake (Discovered 1911)

44.9 million ounces of gold (including tailings) end of 2016.

Kirkland Lake camp produced 535,000 ounces of gold last year.

Red Lake (Discovered 1925)

28.9 million ounces of gold end of 2016.

Red Lake camp produced 324,000 ounces of gold last year.

Hemlo (Discovered 1981)

21.7 million ounces of gold end of 2016.

Hemlo camp produced 235,000 ounces of gold last year.

Sudbury (Discovered 1883)

5.3 million ounces of gold as a byproduct from the nickel/copper production.

Other Ontario Camps

Beardmore-Geraldton Camp  – 4,115,610 oz.

Musselwhite Mine (Goldcorp Inc.) –  4,649,731 oz.

Detour Lake Mine (Detour Gold Corp.) – 3 514 102 oz.

Wawa Camp – 3,155,935 oz.

Pickle Lake Camp – 2,964,474 oz.

Quebec (outdated statistics)

Val d’Or – 15 million oz.

Rouyn-Noranda – 14.6 million oz.

Cadillac-Bousquet – 12 million oz.

Malartic – 8.4 million oz.

Chibougamau-Chapais – 6.7 million oz.

Casa Berardi – 4 million oz.

Duparquet – 1.2 million oz.

Matagami (no gold) 10.2 billion pounds zinc and 1 billion pounds copper

Map Courtesy of Robert Valliant, Ph. D., CEO & Director Tri Origin Exploration