The Sudbury Basin

Photo by Alan L Brown - March 28, 2006

Plaque Location

The City of Greater Sudbury
In Bell Park at the foot of Elizabeth Street just south of the parking lot

Plaque Text

A ring of low hills, with Sudbury on the south rim, follows the outline of the "Sudbury Nickle Irruptive", a unique and remarkably complex geological structure. The mines situated along the outer rim of this boat-shaped basin produce most of the world's nickel, platinum, palladium and related metals, and large amounts of copper, gold, tellurium, selenium and sulphur. Made up of many kinds of igneous rock forced while still molten into a roughly concentric arrangement, some seventeen hundred million years ago, the basin is about 59 km long and 27 km wide. These rocks and the minerals of the ore deposits probably had a common source deep within the Earth's crust.