The Golden Giant Mine was an underground gold mine in the Hemlo mining camp in Canada, located north of Lake Superior, midway between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay, Ontario near the town of Marathon. GOLD refers to one of the following: GOLD (IEEE) is an IEEE program designed to garner more student members at the university level (Graduates of the Last Decade). ... Lake Superior, bounded by Ontario, Canada and Minnesota, USA, to the north and Wisconsin and Michigan, USA, to the south, is the largest of North Americas Great Lakes. ... Nickname: Motto: Naturally Gifted Coordinates: Country Canada Province Ontario District Algoma District Incorporated 1887 (town), 1912 (city) Government  - City Mayor John Rowswell  - Governing body The Corporation of the City of Sault Sainte Marie  - MPs Tony Martin  - MPPs David Orazietti Area  - City  276 sq mi (715 km²) Elevation  630 ft (192... Nickname: Motto: Superior by nature Location of Thunder Bay, Ontario Coordinates: Country Canada Province Ontario Region Northwestern Ontario District Thunder Bay District CMA Thunder Bay Established 1970 (amalgamation between Fort William and Port Arthur) Incorporated as Towns Port Arthur in 1884 Fort William in 1892 Incorporated as Cities Both Port... Motto: Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Latin: Loyal she began, loyal she remains) Capital Toronto Largest city Toronto Official languages English Government - Lieutenant-Governor James K. Bartleman - Premier Dalton McGuinty (Liberal) Federal representation in Canadian Parliament - House seats 106 - Senate seats 24 Confederation July 1, 1867 (1st) Area Ranked 4th... Marathon is a town located in the Thunder Bay district in Ontario. ...

History

Prospectors John Larch and Don McKinnon discovered gold in the Hemlo camp in the early 1980s, starting a staking rush not seen in Canada since the Klondike gold rush of the late 1800s. Two companies, Golden Sceptre and Goliath Resources, secured rights to a large land package in the area, and were subsequently acquired by Noranda. A typical gold mining operation, on Bonanza Creek. ... This article is about the mining corporation Noranda. ...

Noranda permitted and built the Golden Giant mine in less than two years. With its first pour in April, 1985, the Golden Giant was the first mine in the camp to ship.

Peak production occurred in the early 1990s, approaching 500,000 oz per year. During its 21-year life, the mine produced over 6 million ounces of gold.

Ownership

Noranda formed Hemlo Gold Mines, Inc. to operate the mine. Hemlo merged with U.S.-producer Battle Mountain Gold in 1996. That company, in turn, was acquired by Newmont Mining, who currently own the property, in 2001. Newmont Mining Corporation NYSE: NEM, based in Denver, Colorado, USA, is the worlds second-largest producer of gold, with active mines in Canada, Bolivia, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Turkey, Peru and Uzbekistan. ...

Geology

The average grade of the ore was approximately 10 g/t (0.3 opt).

Operations

The mine was designed as a 3000-dmtpd (dry metric tonne per day) operation. With the Block 5 expansion, the mine shaft reached a depth of more than 5000 feet.

The mill was a conventional leach-CIP circuit. The ore was crushed to 3/8" with standard- and short-head cone crushers. The crushed material was fed to one of two grinding circuits (A-circuit = 3 ball mills, B-circuit = single ball mill). A-circuit was one of the first in the world to include the fully-automated Knelson (gravity) conctentrator. A second unit was added to the B-Circuit around the year 2000. Concentrate from the Knelsons was upgraded with a shaking table. That unit was replaced with the first Acacia concentrator installed in North America.

After grinding, the ore was fed to the leach circuit where the gold was dissolved. Dissolved gold was recovered in the carbon-in-pulp circuit. Once or twice per week the carbon was treated in a 15-tonne pressure Zadra strip process. Gold was recovered from the pregnant solution on stainless steel wool cathodes in the refinery.

From 1996 onward, much of the tailings were returned to the mine as pastefill backfill.

Current Operation

The mine ceased operation in 2005, and closed permanently in 2006. Reclamation of the site is underway.

External links

• Official Newmont Site