Buzzard Creek (Gulch)

Past Producer in Alaska, United States with commodity Gold
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 10100980
MRDS ID A012690
Record type Site
Current site name Buzzard Creek (Gulch)
Related records 10233471

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -164.18338, 65.51933 (WGS84)
Relative position Buzzard Creek is a small north tributary to Noxapaga River. It is about 2,500 feet to the east and parallel to Black Gulch (BN018). The location of placer workings on this creek is approximate but its entire length is less than one mile. This is locality 51 of Cobb (1972; MF 417; 1975; OFR 75-429).

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Nome(Census area)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Bendeleben C-5(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Bendeleben NW(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Bendeleben(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Imuruk Basin(hydrologic unit)

Norton Sound(hydrologic accounting unit)

Northwest(hydrologic subregion)

Alaska(hydrologic region)

Federal lands

BLM(Federal land areas administered by BLM)

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

Nearby scientific data

(1) -164.18338, 65.51933

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Gold was discovered soon after the turn of the century on tributaries to the Noxapaga River including Buzzard Creek (Collier and others, 1908) and mining took place here after WW II (Hopkins, 1963; Cobb, 1975, OFR 75-429). Frozen, stratified peat and silt (muck), 20 to 30 feet-thick, commonly overlies a few feet of auriferous gravel that is on schist bedrock (Hopkins, 1963, Figure 8, p. 94). Muck locally contains bones of extinct Pleistocene mammals. Although tundra cover of bedrock is extensive in the area (Till and others, 1986), Hopkins (1963) indicates that quartz-calcite veins are common in schist bedrock of the gold- producing tributaries to the Noxapaga River.
  • Age = Quaternary; an early radiocarbon age on shallow parts of the frozen and stratifed peat and silt of nearby Black Gulch was 8,800 +/- 200 years (Hopkins, 1963, Figure 8).

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Inactive

Mining district

District name Kougarok

Comments on the production information

  • Production Notes = Significant mining seems to have taken place just before WW II (Smith, 1939, B 910A; 1939, B 017A; 1941) and after (Hopkins, 1963).

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Surface open-cut placer mining, including dozer and sluice operations, took place on this creek.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Cobb, 1975 (OFR 75-429)

General comments

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

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 15-MAR-1999 Travis L. Hudson Applied Geology

Beyond USGS

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

Authoritative Alaska resources

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