Kaygeedee Minerals

The Yates mine is a vein-dyke northwest of the Quebec town of Otter Lake.  Vein-dykes are deep-seated metamorphic features common to the Central Metasedimentary belt of the Grenville geologic province of Ontario, Quebec and Upper New York state.  They typically have calcite cores and margins of pegmatitic versions of whatever country rock minerals they are intruding.  At the Yates mine the country rock is a Diopside-Kspar-Scapolite-Apatite gneiss, thus, the Yates mine is known for large, lustrous crystals of  Diopside, Microcline, Scapolite, Apatite and Titanite in an attractive orange Calcite.

The Yates mine was originally a Uranium prospect/scam back in the 1950s.  A lot of trenching was done and an adit was driven into the hillside but negligable Uranium was found.  The area has been intermittently mined for specimens ever since.

Apatite has a perfect basal parting, therefore, it is fragile and breaks easily.  For this reason double terminated Apatite crystals are rare and are usually frozen in matrix.  For every one you see a hundred were left behind as shattered bits!