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Divide Creek

Prospect 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. Nearby scientific data
  9. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  10. Mining district
  11. Links to other databases
  12. Bibliographic references
  13. General comments
  14. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10002060
MRDS ID A012911
Record type Site
Current site name Divide Creek
Related records 10208762

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -165.27497, 64.83679 (WGS84)
Relative position Divide Creek is a short, west tributary to upper Nome River. Its headwaters are at the divide between the Nome River and Stewart River drainages. Divide Creek enters Nome River about 2 miles south of the confluence of Hudson Creek and Nome River. This location is just downslope of where the Campion Ditch crosses Divide Creek. It is locality 104 of Cobb (1972 [MF 463], 1978 [OFR 78-93]).

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Nome(Census area)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Nome D-1(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Solomon NW(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Nome(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Nome(hydrologic unit)

Norton Sound(hydrologic accounting unit)

Northwest(hydrologic subregion)

Alaska(hydrologic region)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold Ore
Quartz Gangue

Mineral occurrence model information

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

Nearby scientific data

(1) -165.27497, 64.83679
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Divide Creek is a small creek that heads in the divide between the Stewart River and Nome River drainages. Some sluicing of placer gold took place here in 1903 (Collier and others, 1908). Parts of the creek flow over deep gravel deposits of glacial origin (Collier and others, 1908). Nearby glacial and fluvio-glacial deposits are part of the modified drift of the Nome River glaciation and the modified drift of the Stewart River glaciation (Bundtzen and others, 1994). During construction of the Campion Ditch, quartz with attached gold was found near here; one quartz fragment with gold weighed 0.75 pound (Moffit, 1913).? Moffit (1913) thought the placer gold was derived from near Boer Mountain; recent hardrock exploration has found significant lode gold deposits nearby, for example at the Divide prospect (NM058). Some of the gold at Divide Creek could also been derived by reworking of weakly auriferous glacial drift of the Nome River and Stewart River glaciations.? Bedrock is not exposed in Divide Creek, but nearby it appears to be graphitic and calcareous quartz schist (Hummel, 1962 [MF 248]). This schist may be lower grade than most of the metamorphic rocks immediately to the north on Boer Mountain. (Projections from mapping to the west suggest that the western rocks could be biotite-bearing [Sainsbury, Hummel, and Hudson, 1972; Bundzten and others, 1994]).? the bedrock is probably part of the Nome Group derived from Proterozoic to early Paleozoic protoliths (Till and Dumoulin, 1994). The Nome Group underwent regional blueschist facies metamorphism in the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous (Sainsbury, Coleman, and Kachadoorian, 1970; Forbes and others, 1984; Thurston, 1985; Armstrong and others, 1986; Hannula and McWilliams, 1995). The blueschist facies rocks were recrystallized to greenschist facies or higher metamorphic grades in conjunction with regional extension, crustal melting, and magmatism in the mid-Cretaceous (Hudson and Arth, 1983; Miller and Hudson, 1991; Miller and others, 1992; Dumitru and others, 1995; Hannula and others, 1995; Hudson, 1994; Amato and others, 1994; Amato and Wright, 1997, 1998). The ultimate source of the placer deposits at Divide Creek are lode gold deposits related to the higher temperature metamorphism in the mid-Cretaceous (Apodoca, 1994; Ford, 1993 (thesis); Ford and Snee, 1996; Goldfarb and others, 1997).
  • Age = Quaternary.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Prospect
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Probably inactive

Mining district

District name Nome

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Collier and others (1908) noted some mining in 1903 and plans, probably not carried out, for hydraulic mining. Moffit (1913, p. 100) found no evidence of extensive mining when he visited the area, but did note that the placer gold could have come from the south slopes of Boer Mountain.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Moffit, 1913

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Placer Au (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 22-OCT-99 Hawley, C.C. Hawley Resource Group
Reporter 22-OCT-99 Travis L. Hudson Hawley Resource Group

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.