Book 24, Question 92
Why is Sudbury, Ontario, famous for mining?
About 1.85 billion years ago, a giant space rock hit what is now Sudbury and created a huge crater. The impact helped bring up rock rich in nickel and copper. Miners have dug these metals for over a century. Sudbury is known for the Big Nickel, a giant nickel coin statue, and for its science center, Science North.
More fun facts
- In 1883, Tom Flanagan, a blacksmith helping build the Canadian Pacific Railway, found nickel-copper ore near Sudbury.
- That find led to the Murray Mine, and Sudbury became Canada's first major mining camp.
- Within 30 years, the Sudbury area was the nickel capital of the world.
- The space rock was about 10 kilometers wide, and its crater was about 200 kilometers across.
- Metals separated from the melted rock and sank to the crater floor, forming ores of nickel, copper, platinum, and other metals.
- Sudbury's iron-rich ores weather to a rusty color, which made them easy for prospectors to spot.
- The Copper Cliff Superstack, finished in 1972, was once the tallest chimney in the world.
Sources: files.ontario.ca, files.ontario.ca
Questions kids ask
Can you still see the Sudbury crater?
Not as a bowl, but rocks from the melted crust form an oval ring about 20 kilometers wide and 60 kilometers long.