9 
Economic Minerals 
A considerable number of economic minerals have been reported from 
Gaspe, including coal, petroleum, and asbestos, among non-metals; and 
gold, copper, zinc, lead, and chromium among metals. Until recently it 
cannot be said that any of the deposits have shown much promise. The 
Devono-Carboniferous rocks of the south coast are of too low an horizon 
to provide workable coal seams; and the Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks that 
show signs of oil and gas appear to have been too much fractured and 
faulted to retain important stores of these fuels. 
Asbestos occurs of both the chrysotile and the hornblende varieties, 
but is not known to be of a grade worth working; and in most cases the 
finds of metallic minerals have been on too small a scale to be exploited. 
The development within the last few years of the Federal Zinc and Lead 
mine in Lemieux township near the centre of the peninsula opens up new 
prospects for a mining industry, however, since large amounts of high- 
grade ore have been disclosed in its workings. Other discoveries of zinc 
and lead ores have been made near by and it may be that the “Heart of 
Gaspe", hitherto neglected and almost inaccessible, will be opened up as 
a mining region 1 . 
The geological associations of these extensive veins of zinc and lead 
ore are decidedly promising, for they occur in slate accompanied by some 
limestone penetrated by eruptives, both acid and basic. The Tabletop 
batholith must have cooled slowly in contact with slates and other sedi- 
mentary rocks, which were crushed and faulted at the time of the elevation 
of the mountains, so that there was an opportunity for magmatic fluids to 
circulate through their fissures. These relations are similar to those of 
many western mining regions of importance, and suggest interesting- 
possibilities in this oldest but most neglected part of Canada. 
OUTLINE OF PRE-PLEISTOCENE GEOLOGY 
Palaeozoic Sediments 
In order to follow effectively the glacial geology of the region it is 
necessary to know something of its bedrocks, so as to trace the source 
of transported materials. The lower parts of the peninsula consist of the 
usual sedimentary rocks — sandstones, conglomerates, shales, and lime- 
stones — and include formations determined as Cambrian, Ordovician, 
Silurian, Devonian, and probably lowest Carboniferous . 2 In some cases 
these rocks are fossiliferous, but it has been found in practice that the 
lithological characters of boulders are most important for the Pleistocene 
geologist, since non-fossiliferous rocks furnish by far the greater number 
of resistant fragments to serve as records of ice motion. Among the 
sedimentary rocks on the north side of the peninsula only certain quartzitic 
sandstones and the curious boulder conglomerate called in the Geological 
Survey reports “limestone conglomerate," both mapped with the Cambrian, 
proved of importance. On the south side none of the sedimentary rocks 
of the Silurian or Devonian proved of much value in tracing routes of ice 
transport. 
For details see pp. 41 and 42. 
Twelfth Inter. Geol. Cong., Guide Book No. I, 1913, pp. 32, etc. 
