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Snowflake

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 10002075
MRDS ID A012931
Record type Site
Current site name Snowflake

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -165.35077, 64.58567 (WGS84)
Relative position The Snowflake placer mine is at Dexter, in the north headwaters of Dexter Creek (NM303). It is at an elevation of about 600 feet on the south side of the divide between Nekula Gulch and Deer Gulch. The map location is just inside the south-central boder of section 30, T. 10 S., R. 33 W., Kateel River Meridian. It is included in locality 117 (Dexter Hill) 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 C-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

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
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Sedimentary Rock > Carbonate > Limestone

Nearby scientific data

(1) -165.35077, 64.58567
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = The Snowflake mine is one of several near the divide between upper Anvil Creek (NM236) and Dexter Creek (NM303) at surface elevations of about 450 to 600 feet, where high-level gravels were placer mined for gold. These deposits were in gravels that ranged from a few feet to 150 feet thick and commonly were very rich (Brooks and others, 1901). The richest pay was near bedrock and in decomposed or fractured bedrock. The high-level gravels were mined mostly by drifting, but some hydraulic mining also took place. The section exposed in the main shaft of the Snowflake mine included 5 feet of muck and gravel containing granite and gneiss boulders above 125 feet of silt and gravel on bedrock; the lower 3 to 9 feet of gravel was auriferous. West of the shaft, the pay streak was 100 feet wide on bedrock but to the east this paystreak was on older gravels. A winze sunk 70 feet east of the main shaft reached bedrock 100 feet deeper, where another pay streak was developed on bedrock (Collier and others, 1908). The pay at the Snowflake mine ran about 0.3 ounce of gold per cubic yard; the gold was bright and subangular to crystalline (small octahedrons were visible), and some nuggets included fragments of quartz and calcite. The largest nugget recovered by 1903 weighed more than 9 ounces (Collier and others, 1908). The high-level gravels were originally interpreted to be alluvial deposits in stream channels of former drainage systems, but more recent interpretations describe them as glacial outwash-related material (Cobb, 1973 [B 1374]; Nelson and Hopkins, 1972). The presence of erratic granite boulders and other exotic rock types suggests a glacial origin, but the exotic clasts are commonly in near-surface materials and not distributed throughout the high-level gravels (Moffit, 1913). The origin of the high-level gravels thus still seems in question. The richness of some of the placers suggests extensive reworking, proximity to lode sources, or both.? The Anvil fault transects the area near Nekula Gulch. The Anvil fault is a through-going, high-angle structure that juxtaposes different types of graphitic schist in this area (Hummel, 1962 [MF 247]). Bedrock is mostly graphitic schist, probably of early Paleozoic protolith age (Hummel, 1962, [MF 247]; Sainsbury, Hummel, and Hudson, 1972 [OFR 72-326]; Till and Dumoulin, 1994; Bundtzen and others, 1994).
  • Age = Quaternary.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Inactive

Mining district

District name Nome

Comments on the production information

  • Production Notes = Production from the high-level gravels of the general area totaled about 100,000 ounces by 1903 (Collier and others, 1908). The pay ran about 0.3 ounce of gold per cubic yard at the Snowflake mine (Collier and others, 1908).

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Workings at the Snowflake mine were underground. They included a 130-foot-deep main shaft, a winze sunk 70 feet east of the main shaft to the 230-foot level, and drifts trending N 60 W and S 60 E from the main shaft (Collier and others, 1908; Moffit, 1913).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Collier and others, 1908

General comments

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

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 10-JUL-00 Hawley, C.C. Hawley Resource Group
Reporter 10-JUL-00 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.