| Abstract | This booklet describes mineral and rock collecting localities in the Îles de la Madeleine (Quebec), the Island of Newfoundland, and Labrador. A variety of mineral, rock, and fossil collecting sites
await the tourist, the amateur and professional mineralogist, and the lobbyist. The Îles de la Madeleine provide several varieties of gypsum, calcite, and quartz crystals, and specularite, pyrite, epidote, magnetite, dolomite, and manganese minerals.
Fossils of late Paleozoic age are found in some localities. Recent exploration resulted in the discovery of natural gas and salt deposits. Mining activity in Newfoundland and Labrador began two centuries ago. The province is Canada's sole producer of
pyrophyllite. Other operating mines yield iron, gypsum, asbestos, gold, base metals, limestone, and silica. Mining in the past produced copper, lead, antimony, arsenic, fluorite, barite, and coal. Both the inactive and active mines provide mineral
collecting sites; other occurrences furnish celestine, quartz crystals, beryl, scheelite, prehnite, and manganese minerals. For the gem-cutter or sculptor, there is amethyst, xonotlite, labradorite, hypersthene and jasper, and a variety of ornamental
rocks including pyrophyllite,
chrome-mica rock ('virginite'), marble, granite, and volcanic rocks. Rock cuts along highways and shoreline exposures contain cavities lined with tiny crystals of quartz, pyrite, and other minerals suitable for
micro-mounting. Most localities are readily accessible and can be reached by automobile and a short hike and, less commonly, by boat. The localities in Labrador are reached by boat, by air, or by snowmobile. |