Manipulating Data Possible Sites for Kings, Hants and Lunenberg Counties

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Analyzing Potential Gold Mine Sites

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in Nova Scotia
The process used to determine the interest area of the potential mine sites in the Berwick
and Kings, Hants, Lunenberg sites involved two major steps. Each of the three possible sites
in the two locations first involved determining an interest area polygon feature class. The
"buffer" tool was used and the distance for each interest area was then based on the
Kings Possible Site

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"BUFF_DIST" field within the mine site point feature classes. A buffer was necessary to
determine the size of the interest area at each possible mine site. The next step was to
1
determine what soils, forest types and county area(s) were located within the interest area
of the possible mine sites. In order to combine the interest area feature class of possible
mine sites the overlay operation was necessary because it would combine both the
geometry and attributes of input layers. In order to gain a more comprehensive and in-
depth analysis of the possible mine sites, the “intersect” tool was selected as the specific

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overlay operation. The intersect tool was selected because it would preserve the geometry
of the mine site interest area and would only select features from the input layers (forest, Hants Possible Site
soil and county polygons) that fall within the extent of the interest area. The intersect also 2
was a preferred method of overlaying because it combined all attribute data from the input
layers, in this case the output layer would have interest area, soil, forest and county
attribute data. The complete process of the buffer and intersect, in combination with
additional data processing techniques such as creating a frequency table, adding a new field

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and calculating the area of polygons within the interest can be seen in the Model Builder in
Figure #1.
Table 1: Data for Kings, Hants and Lunenberg County Sites
UniqNum COUNTY STONINESS SOILNAME MATURITY SPEC1 Area_Hectares
1 Kings County - Berwick 0 1.187368 Lunenburg Possible Site
1 Kings County - Horton 0 5.946791
1 Kings County - Berwick 4 S 0.068823
3
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1 Kings County - Horton 4 S 0.839448
2 Hants County 0 Dufferin 0 1.567368
0 750 1,500 2,250 3,000
2 Hants County 0 Torbrook 0 1.778169
Meters
2 Hants County 0 Dufferin 4 S 0.279791
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2 Hants County 0 Torbrook 4 S 4.120326
2 Hants County 0 Torbrook 7 S 0.296786 Possible Mine Sites Soil Name Interest Area Buffer Distance (m)
3 Lunenburg County 3 Wolfville 0 1.427494 Nova Scotia Roads Berwick 160
3 Lunenburg County 3 Wolfville 4 S 3.824201 Dufferin
County Area
3 Lunenburg County 3 Wolfville 4 IH 0.01432
Horton
3 Lunenburg County 3 Wolfville 5 IH 2.77147 Water
Torbrook
3 Lunenburg County 3 Wolfville 6 IH 0.00236
3 Lunenburg County 3 Wolfville 7 IH 0.002588 Wolfville

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Possible Sites for Berwick Area
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The tables provided (Table 1, Table 2) provide information for the corresponding maps of
Kings, Hants and Lunenberg Counties and the Berwick Area respectively. In each of the

/ tables is a unique area identifier that corresponds with the possible mine sites in each of
the maps. As well, five other categories (county, stoniness, soil name, tree maturity and
tree species) as well as the area (in hectares) of all areas that intersect each of the interest
areas are provided. Table 1 for Kings, Hants and Lunenberg Counties contains five names
and a stoniness of “3” within the interest area in Lunenberg County. Comparing the
Lunenberg interest area to Kings and Hants interest areas (no value for stoniness), might
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lead to potential mine sites due to the level of stones being higher. Each of the mine sites
in the first table also had less variety in terms of soil within the interest area buffer. Table
2 exhibited some different attributes than Table 1 both in terms of stoniness and soil.
There were no values for stoniness and may not be suitable for potential sites due to a
lack of geological data. There were also five different soil names, however there were a
Berwick Possible Site greater variety of these soils within each of the interest area buffers which could lead to
further investigation for potential gold mine sites.
11
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Table 2: Data for Berwick Area Sites

SE Berwick Possible Site UniqNum COUNTY STONINESS SOILNAME MATURITY SPEC1 Area_Hectares
12 Kings County - Berwick 0 3.34395
12
12 Kings County - Berwick 4 S 0.69125
12 Kings County - Berwick 7 IH 0.880397
12 Kings County - Cornwallis 0 1.336937
12 Kings County - Cornwallis 4 S 0.95872
12 Kings County - Cornwallis 7 IH 0.627751
11 Kings County - Eroded 0 1.004609
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11 Kings County - Eroded 4 A 6.347205

11 Kings County - Eroded 4 S 0.87741
11 Kings County - Eroded 4 IH 1.530449
11 Kings County - Eroded 7 A 2.468321
South Berwick Possible Site 11 Kings County - Eroded 7 S 1.321399
13 11 Kings County - Eroded 7 IH 2.170993
0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000
11 Kings County - Eroded 7 WP 0.183863
Metres
12 Kings County - Hopewell 0 0.539059
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Possible Mine Sites Soil Name Interest Area Buffer Distance (m) 12 Kings County - Hopewell 4 WP 1.734228
Nova Scotia Roads Berwick 170 12 Kings County - Hopewell 5 A 1.053144
County Area Cornwallis 195 12 Kings County - Hopewell 7 A 0.449761
Water Eroded 225 12 Kings County - Hopewell 7 IH 0.330644
Hopewell 13 Kings County - Water 0 0.653254
Water 13 Kings County - Water 4 A 7.871059
13 Kings County - Water 4 S 0.023158
13 Kings County - Water 7 S 0.531677

Ki ngs ,

H ants ,
Buffer ( 2)
Ki ngs ,H ants ,

Lunenber g Figure 1: Data Processing Model

P

Ki ngs ,H ants ,Lunenber g Sum m ar y Sum m ar y C al c ul ate F i el d Sum m ar y

F or es t Inter s ec t ( 2) F r equenc y ( 2) Add F i el d ( 2)
Inter s ec t Ki ngs , H ants , Ki ngs , ( 2) Ki ngs , H ants ,

C ounti es

Sum m ar y Sum m ar y
s oi l _pol y gon Inter s ec t Ber w i c k Inter s ec t F r equenc y Sum m ar y Ber w i c k Add F i el d C al c ul ate F i el d
Ber w i c k ( 2) Ber w i c k ( 3)

P Projection: UTM Zone 20

Ber w i c k Datum: NAD 83
Buffer Ber w i c k Buffer
M i nes Course: GISY 5004
Date: October 22, 2010
Data Source: Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources to COGS for
educational purposes; Road Date from www.Geobase.ca
Created by: Cam McKellar
Disclaimer: This map has been created as a student project and should not be
used as a reference or reproduced in any way.