On the origin and age of the Steep Rock buckshot, Ontario, Canada

The Steep Rock buckshot is a brecciated pisolithic ferruginous bauxite found in the Errington iron mine, Steep Rock Lake, Ontario, Canada. It occurs within the almost vertical ore zone included in the Archean Steep Rock Group, reaching a depth in excess of 1100 ft. (335 m). Successive authors considered its age as Precambrian. The biological observations now presented deny this supposed Precambrian age. Treatment of the concretions by HCI, followed by staining, put in evidence abundant microscopic figurate animal and vegetal remains, namely shreds of insect integument and varied fragments of vascular plant material. Comparable results were obtained by casting and by scanning electron miscroscopy (SEM) of the surface of the concretions and by thin sections. All these remains are Phanerozoic and one of them is probably not anterior to the Late Cretaceous. The macro- and micromorphology of the concretions obey models of termite constructions and the spectrum of organic remains is identical to the one found in tubulo-alveolar laterites and in termite constructions. The presence in the matrix of canaliculi attributable to thin roots gives force to the idea that the buckshot was originated near the soil surface.