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  3. Mineral Resource Data System (MRDS)

Miller Creek

Past Producer in Alaska, United States with commodity Gold
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Sections on this page
  1. Identification information
  2. Geographic coordinates
  3. Site location context
  4. Geographic areas
  5. Commodities
  6. Materials information
  7. Mineral occurrence model information
  8. Host and associated rocks
  9. Nearby scientific data
  10. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  11. Mining district
  12. Links to other databases
  13. Bibliographic references
  14. General comments
  15. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10001479
MRDS ID A012228
Record type Site
Current site name Miller Creek
Related records 10160565

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -145.301, 65.51084 (WGS84)
Relative position The placered area extends discontinuously along Miller Creek for about 1.5 miles up and downstream from the intersection of the coordinates. Miller Creek is a tributary to Mammoth Creek. The Steese Highway parallels the lower 4 km of Miller Creek on the north side.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Yukon-Koyukuk(Census area)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Circle C-3(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Circle NE(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Circle C(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Alaska(hydrologic region)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold Ore

Mineral occurrence model information

Model code 119
USGS model code 39a
Deposit model name Placer Au-PGE
Mark3 model number 54

Host and associated rocks

  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Metamorphic Rock > Schist

Nearby scientific data

(1) -145.301, 65.51084
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Miller Creek is approximately 8 km in length and empties into Mammoth Creek about 2 km below the mouth of Mastodon Creek. The upper part of Miller Creek is underlain by the Middle Schist and Quartzite unit described by Wiltse and others (1995) as fine- to medium-grained quartz-muscovite schist, porphyroblastic albite-quartz-chlorite-muscovite schist, and lesser amounts of quartzose porphyroblastic albite-chlorite-schist. The lower part of the creek, including the confluence with Mammoth Creek, is underlain by the Lower Schist, a unit consisting of slightly calcareous quartz-muscovite schist, prophyroblastic albite-quartz-chlorite-muscovite schist, and lesser amounts of quartzose, porphyroblastic albite-chlorite schist and chlorite schist. Tertiary biotite granite crops out in the lower one half mile of the creek (Freeman and others, 1988).? In the lower valley, gravel thickness is 2 to 3 meters and overlying muck is 1 to 2 meters thick. Clasts in Miller Creek gravel are subangular to well-rounded and are as much as 1 meter in diameter (Yeend, 1991). Locally, a 1 meter thick bed of clay is present at the base of the gravel (Mertie, 1938). Most gold was recovered from the lower meter of gravel and at the gravel-bedrock contact in a width across the valley ranging from 15 to 20 meters. The gold formed fine flat scales and only a few nuggets weighing as much as 1 ounce were recovered (Mertie, 1938). Analyses of two sets of 7 assays gave weighted mean values of fineness of 832 Au and162 Ag, and 838 Au and153 Ag (Mertie, 1938).? Placer gold was mined intermittently from 1895 to 1940 but there are no data on production (Cobb, 1976, p. 47, [OFR 76-633]). Hydraulic mining was common throughout the district in the middle 20th century and only the thin, muck-covered, low-grade gravel was left unmined. In the early 1980's, only one mining operation was active near the mouth of Miller Creek. That operation involved thawing and moving a 10 meter thick section of gravel (Wilkinson, 1984).

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Inactive

Mining district

District name Circle

Comments on the production information

  • Production Notes = Placer gold was mined intermittently from 1895 to 1940, and in the early 1980's one mining operation was active near the mouth of Miller Creek, but there are no data on production (Cobb, 1976, p. 47, [OFR 76-633]; Wilkinson, 1984).

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Placer gold was mined intermittently from 1895 to 1940 but there are no data on production (Cobb, 1976, p. 47, [OFR 76-633]). Hydraulic mining was common throughout the district in the middle 20th century and only the thin, muck-covered, low-grade gravel was left unmined. In the early 1980's, only one mining operation was active near the mouth of Miller Creek. That operation involved thawing and moving a 10 meter thick section of gravel (Wilkinson, 1984).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Cobb, 1976, OFR 76-633.

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Placer gold deposit (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a)
Deposit Other Comments = See also Mammoth Creek, ARDF no. CI036, Independence Creek, ARDF no. CI029 and Mastodon Creek, ARDF no. CI037.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 09-SEP-98 C.J. Freeman Avalon Development Corporation
Reporter 09-SEP-98 J.R. Guidetti Schaefer Avalon Development Corporation
Reporter 09-SEP-98 Clements, A.S. Avalon Development Corporation

Beyond USGS

Supplemental information added by qvyshift.com. Not part of the original USGS MRDS record.

Maps centered on this site

Authoritative Alaska resources

These are landing pages for further research — the state agencies don't currently expose per-mine deep links.