Regional Setting. The Pingo Canadian Landmark is situated on the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula. The peninsula is part of an old delta of the Mackenzie River that formed between 12,000 and 600,000 years ago in what is referred to in the geologic time chart as the Pleistocene Epoch. Its hummocky terrain of lake- strewn tundra contains approximately 1,450 conical pingos which project upward from the surrounding landscape in an area that includes the coastal plain of the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, Xxxxxxxx Island, and the south side of Husky Lakes. The Pingo Canadian Landmark is located on the shore of Kugmallit Bay adjacent to the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk at approximately 69°23' N and 133°9' W. Tuktoyaktuk is located approximately 120 km northeast from Inuvik, Northwest Territories.
Regional Setting. For the last half-century, sediment-hosted, Cxxxxx-type gold systems have accounted for most economic gold discoveries in Nevada. Mineralization in these environments lies mainly in four geographic belts of mostly Paleozoic carbonate rocks. These belts are located in north-central Nevada, and the three most productive pass through the townsites of Carlin (“Cxxxxx Trend”), Battle Mountain (“Battle Mountain-Eureka Trend”) and Golconda (“Gxxxxxxx Trend”). The fourth belt, the “Independence Trend”, is located north of the town of Elko and is the location of the Jerritt Canyon group of mines (Queenstake Resources) and the Big Springs Mine (Golden Gate Resources). Collectively, these belts hold a geochemical endowment of over 200 million ounces of gold. A key to understanding this endowment lies in understanding the structural relationships of the stratigraphic section. The Paleozoic era throughout north-central Nevada is a period in which a craton extended from the Mid-Continent westward to about the longitude of present-day Battle Mountain (Sxxxxxx, 1980). East of the inferred craton margin was a gently sloping (miogeoclinal) carbonate shelf, consisting of a variety of quiet-water quartzite, limestone, and intrabasinal shale (“Eastern Assemblage” rocks); and west of the margin was a much deeper oceanic environment depositing a sequence of siliciclastic sediments, largely composed of deep-water shale, chert, and volcanic ashes and flows (“Western Assemblage” rocks). During the Paleozoic, sedimentary rocks were structurally deformed by a series of east-directed compressional tectonic events. There were at least two such events of primary importance: A Devonian-Mississippian event, transporting pre-Devonian deep-water sediments eastward ("Antler orogeny") created the Rxxxxxx Mountain and associated thrust faults. This was followed by a Permo-Triassic event, transporting Mississippian to Permian age deep-water sediments eastward ("Sonoma orogeny") creating the Golconda and Humboldt Thrust faults. A period of tectonic quiescence, allowing for the deposition of local basin sands and conglomerates and shallow limestones of the “overlap” sequence, marked erosion and subsidence during Mississippian to Permian times, and separated the two compressional events. Both compressional events deformed rock units into a series of folds, and thrust the western assemblage siliciclastic rocks over the eastern assemblage carbonate rocks, forming one of the principal structural trap...
Regional Setting. 2 This chapter describes the regional setting of the Project within its landscape 3 context in the northern Delta. This context contributes to defining the specific 4 restoration alternatives (Chapter 6) to meet the Project goal and objectives 5 (Chapter 2), including both the target ecological benefits and the range of impact 6 minimization and avoidance measures. Topics covered in this chapter begin with 7 the importance of Prospect Island’s landscape position.
