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  3. Mineral Resource Data System (MRDS)

Summit High Bench

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 10100988
MRDS ID A012909
Record type Site
Current site name Summit High Bench

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -165.36299, 64.57789 (WGS84)
Relative position The Summit high-level placer gold deposit is at an elevation of about 530 feet on the low divide between upper Specimen Gulch (NM312) and Grass Gulch. It is 5,500 feet north-northeast of the summit of Anvil Mountain in the west-central part of section 31, T. 10 S., R. 33 W., Kateel River Meridian. Summit was a former station on the abandoned Seward Peninsula railway. The locality is included in numer 18 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 Sedimentary Rock > Carbonate > Limestone

Nearby scientific data

(1) -165.36299, 64.57789
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = The Summit high-level bench placer mine worked a gravel deposit 600 to 800 feet wide at the surface. The paystreak was in a 50 to 80-foot-wide bedrock channel incised in schist. The mine was developed by shafts and drifts. On the Summit claim (at about 525 feet surface elevation), the gravel was 106 feet thick, and the elevation of the underlying surface of the schist was about 420 feet (Collier and others, 1908, p. 206). At the bottom of the Summit shaft, the local paystreak trended N 82 W. The pay gravel was about 6 to 7 feet thick and was composed of waterworn boulders and cobbles of schist, limestone (marble), and granite. In contrast to the deposit on Dexter divide (NM246), gold nuggets were well rounded and appeared to have been transported for some distance. The paystreak averaged about 7 to 8 dollars per yard (gold at 20.67 dollars per ounce), but some ground was appreciably richer yielding pans worth as much as 150 dollars. One nugget weighed about 7 ounces. Collier and his associates thought that gneiss and granite boulders 'must have come from a great distance and seem to indicate that the stream which deposited them was a long one' (Collier and others, 1908, p. 206).? the high-level gravels were originally interpreted to be alluvial deposits in stream channels of former drainage systems, but David Hopkins has proposed that they are ice-marginal systems (Hopkins and others, 1960; cited in Cobb, 1973 [B 1374, p. 83]; Nelson and Hopkins, 1972). Unlike the Dexter area, where exotic boulders appear to be mostly been in the shallow gravels, at Summit, granite, gneiss, schist, and marble occur throughout the pay gravel. The age and origin of the high-level gravels thus still seem in question. The richness of some of the placers suggests extensive reworking, proximity to lode sources, or both.? 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) map the bedrock at Summit as a porphyroclastic, micaceous graphitic schist.
  • Age = Quaternary; possibly as old as late Tertiary.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Probably 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). About 5000 ounces of gold were probably produced from the high level deposits on the Summit and nearby claims.

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = The workings at the Summit mine were underground. They included several shafts as deep as 106 feet and more than 600 to 700 feet of drifts; 300 feet of the pay streak was worked out by 1903 (Collier and others, 1908).

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; buried high-level alluvial channel (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.