Graphite

specimen number:
2133331

location:
Labelle, Les Laurentides, Quebec, Canada

description:
A rich solid mass of bright lustrous graphite.

The Labelle area, situated within the Les Laurentides regional county municipality of Quebec, Canada, is a historic resource zone noted primarily for its specialized industrial garnet and silica extraction rather than metallic ore mining. Geologically, the region is positioned within the Central Metasedimentary Belt of the Grenville Province, characterized by highly metamorphosed Precambrian basement rocks including crystalline limestones, quartzite, biotite-quartz gneisses, and pegmatites. The local economic interest centers on rich bands of almandine garnet, which occurs both as small disseminated crystals within the country gneiss and as high-grade, deep red massive pockets associated with pyrrhotite. Industrial quarrying and open-trench mining began in earnest following the 1926 incorporation of the Labelle Nickel and Garnet Company Limited, which targeted the high-hardness garnet deposits near Lake Vignon for use as commercial abrasives. The property underwent multiple reorganizations due to economic challenges, operating as the Labelle Mining Company Limited in 1933 and restructuring as Canada Garnet Limited in 1937, with significant stripping, trenching, and shaft sinking continuing through the late 1940s. Additionally, the nearby Clyde Mine saw a brief period of underground activity from 1953 to 1954 under the Dominion Silica Corporation to extract mixed quartzite and granite before permanent closure.

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