Nickel ranks second to manganese among the ferroalloys, but it has also a multitude of other

applications. Most of the world reserves are centered at subdury, Ontario. New Caledonia, Finland,
and Russia are minor producers.

Uses of Nickel. Nickel is pre-eminently an alloy metal and its chief use is in the nickel steel
and nickel cast irons, of which there are innumerable varieties. It is also widely used for many other
alloys, such as nickel brasses and bronzes, and alloys with copper (Monel metal), chromium,
aluminium, lead, cobalt, manganese, silver, and gold. Nickel steels contain from 0.5 to 7 percent
nickel in the low nickel steels and 7 to 35 percent ; nickel brasses and bronzes from 0.5 to 7.5
percent ; copper-nickel alloys from 2.5 to 45 percent ; monel metal 67 percent , and special alloys up
to 80 percent nickel. The proportionate uses are as follows :

Nickel imparts to its alloys toughness, strength, and lightness and anti-corrosion, electrical, and
thermal qualities. Consequently, nickel steels and alloys are preferred for moving and wearing parts
of innumerable machines, tools, shafts, bolts, axles, and gears, in automobiles, airplanes, and ships
and in railway, power, agricultural, crushing, mining, milling, and pressing equipment. Its use for
coinage and plating is widespread

Production and Distribution. The annual world production of nickel ranges between 100 and
150 thousand tons of metal, of which about 85 percent comes from Canada, and the remainder of
New Caledonia, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, and Norway. Finland contains a large deposit, but its
yield is unknown. A large reduction plant at Nicaro, Cuba, yielded nickel oxide during World War II
but is now closed. The United States is the greatest consumer, followed by the other steel making
countries.

Mineralogy and Tenor. The chief commercial, primary mineral of nickel is pentlandite (Fe,
Ni9S8), which is always associated with pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite. Hydrous nickel silicate ores, the
ore minerals of New Caledonia, carry 1 to 4 percent of nickel. The sulphide ores of Sudbury average
about 1,5 percent nickel and 2 percent copper.

Treatment. The nickel-copper sulphide ores are first roasted to release sulfur and then
smelted to a Ni-Cu-Fe matte, which is bessemerized to a matte of 75 to 80 percent Cu-Ni. Some
matte is used directly to make monel metal, the rest being specially smelted to separate copper and
nickel sulphides, the latter being roasted, reduced with carbon, and electrolytically refined to pure
nickel

Kinds of Deposits. There are only two kinds of commercial nickel deposits- residual
concentrations of nickel silicates from the weathering of ultrabasic igneous rocks and nickel-copper
sulphide deposits formed either by replacement or magmatic injection.

Nickel-Copper Deposits of Sudbury, Ont. The great deposits of Sudbury dominate the world
nickel production. The annual production is about 130,000 tons each of nickel and copper, 200,000
ounces platinum, 50,000 ounces old, 1.5 million ounces silver, 150,000 pounds selenium, and 10,000
pounds tellurium. The ore reserves exceed 240 million tons of ore, with 8.5 million tons of copper-
nickel.

Geologic Setting. The region is noted for the norite-micropegmatite intrusion 36 miles long
and 16 miles wide (Fig. 14-14) which crops out as a great ellipse and formerly was considered spoon-
shaped. Yates thinks that its position and shape were controlled by the position and shape of a pre-
existing syncline of folded and faulted Huronian formations. The rocks present according to Yates,
consist of (1) Keewatin volcanics and quartzites, (2) Sudbury series of volcanics and sediments, (3)
Algoman granite, (4) lower Huronian sediments, (5) upper Huronian Whitewater series, (6) norite-
micropegmatite intrusive, (7) Murray and Creighton granites, (8) breccia, (9) trap dikes, and (10)
olivine diabase dikes, Quartz diorite, the chief host rock of the ore, cuts the dikes. Faulting follows,
and, lastly, ore emplacement. The norite intrusive consists of an outer rim of norite, a narrow
transition zone, and an inner zone of micropegmatite, each representing products of differentiation.

Ore Deposits. Yates states that there are three characteristic types of deposits, all with the
same mineralogy, namely: (1) disseminated bodies largely in quartz diorite, (2) massive sulphide
generally along faults or breccia zones, and (3) sulphide stringer zones in shattered and brecciated
country rock of all kinds. He emphasizes that the most favorable host rock and the rock in which
most of the ore occurs is quartz diorite or quartz diorite breccia, and that very little ore occurs in
norite. Massive sulphide ore occurs in granite, quartzite,andesite, breccia, gabbro, and other rocks
where structural conditions permit but never far from quartz diorite. The quartz diorite is apparently
related to the norite. Most of the deposits lie about the margins of the norite intrusive (Fig. 14-14).
The main deposits suc as the Creighton, Frood, Murray, and Falconbridge lie on the south rim; a few,
including the Levack, lie on the north rim. The older concept of marginal and offset deposits is no
longer held. The Levack deposit is enclosed in granite breccia intruded between norite and foot wall
gneiss; the Creighton bodies, both massive and disseminated (Fig 14-15), occur along parallel faults in
a large slab of quartz diorite and in shattered footwall rocks. The Frood-Stobie (Fig. 14-15B) deposite
lies in a large dikelike zone of quartz diorite breccia, separated from the norite footwall by a mile of
Murray granite. A huge, deep body of massive sulphide in breccia is capped and sheathed by
disseminated diorite. The Falconbridge deposit consists of breccia massive and disseminated ore
along a contact shear zone that extend for 9,000 feet in norite, quartz diorite, and greenstone.

The Sudbury ores consist of pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, pentlandite, minor cubanitv. romplex
arsenides, tie nickel-bismuth sulphide purs er ite, tellurides of guid and silvur, sperry lite, and
platinum metals. considerable selenium is present. Other minor minerals noted are magnetite
polyriimite, and in late stage stringers are galena, sphaler- ite, mar asite, violarite, and silvur minerals
along wish quartz and ealeite. The massive ores contain up to 60 percent sulphides, Th ratio of niekel
tu eopper in Frood disseminated gre is I to 1, but etapper in the massive gre is higher; Falennbridge
are rutio is 1 tO 0.6

Origin. The origin of these ores has been controversial, and for detail the reader is referred to
the voluminous literature on the subject. The older conception of Barlow and Colcman of magmatic
segregation by early settling out of the sulphides into embayments is not tenable. The ore is now
known to be definitely later than the solidification of the norite. Between its solidification and the
introduction of sulphides there were five stages of igneous intrusion and a period of faulting
Consequently, there could have been no magmatic segregation of sulphides in situ, nor does a late
magmatic injection of a sulphide melt seem probable. The staff geologists consider that the deposits
were formed by hydrothermal solutions by means of replacement, and the evidence certainly
supports this view.
 Other Deposits. In New Caledonia there are residual enrichments of nickel silicates, already
described in Chapter 5-7 .Similar deposits occur at Nicaro, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Celebes.

At Petsamo, Finland, a nickel-copper sulphide deposit similar to the Sudbury deposits was
developed between 1941 and 1945. It carries 1.6% Ni and 1.3% Cu and contains about 4 million tons
of ore.

At Lynn Lake, Manitoba, developments have disclosed about 10 million tons of Sudbury-type
ore carrying 1.5% Ni and 0.68% Cu.

Near Hope, British Columbia, are small sulphide deposits of low grade nickel ore carrying the
Sudbury type of minerals occurring as injections in hornblendite. The ores contain 1.4% Ni and 0.4%
Cu. Somewhat similar noncommercial deposits are found on Chichagof Island and Yakobi Island,
Alaska. Another deposit of the Sudbury type of ore has been drilled at Rankin Inlet on Hudson Bay. It
ap pears to be a segregation in the base of a pyroxenite sill and carries 4.6% Ni, 1.2% Cu, and
platinum, but the tonnage is insufficient to justify exploration. Similar small nickel deposits are
reputed at Nittis and Kumajie, and in the Urals, in Russia, and a new deposit of high- grade ore has
been opened at Celebes, Netherlands East Indies. The old Gap mine, Pennsylvania, formerly was a
producer of nickel from magmatic sulphide ores. Greece contains small deposits, and an interesting
deposit occurs st Insirwa and in the Bushveld Complex, South Africa