Comparative mineralogy of the ~2.7 Ga Soudan Iron Formation, Minnesota and the Deloro Iron Formation, Timmins, ON, and the Temagami Iron Formation, Temagami, ON.

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to compare the mineralogy of similarly aged rocks from the Soudan Iron Formation in Minnesota and the Temagami and Deloro Iron Formations in Ontario, Canada. We found that the iron-bearing samples generally fell into two categories: those with a banded texture and those that appear to consist mostly of chert with iron phases interspersed randomly throughout the sample. These mineralogical variations and textural relationships can help us infer more information about the depositional environments in each sample location.