Arsenic

specimen number:
2133305

location:
Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

description:
Interesting locality example for the species, grain masses of native arsenic rich across the front of matrix. The specimen comes with a previous label noting that this dates to the 1960s. This is shown at the end of the video.

The Port Alberni region, situated at the head of Alberni Inlet on central Vancouver Island, Canada, features a complex geological setting dominated by the Paleozoic to Mesozoic volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Wrangellia terrane, notably the Vancouver Group metavolcanics and Quatsino limestone. Hydrothermal activity along regional faults led to the formation of localized skarn, quartz vein, and shear-hosted deposits rich in copper, gold, iron, and limestone, alongside nearby coal-bearing sedimentary basins. Hard-rock mining and quarrying history in the immediate area began in the early 1860s with brief copper and gold exploration, expanding significantly between 1898 and 1902 when underground copper-gold mining peaked at properties like the Three Jays mine on Mount Sicker and the Alberni Gold mine near China Creek. Concurrently, coal mining occurred sporadically at the Bainbridge and Alberni pits between 1910 and 1914, while industrial quarrying of limestone, shale, and gravel for local construction and regional pulp mill processing operated through much of the mid-to-late 20th century, with commercial aggregate and clay extraction persisting in smaller capacities into the early 2000s.

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