1. Mineral Resources
  2. Online Spatial Data
  3. Mineral Resource Data System (MRDS)

Cape Creek Beach

Prospect in Alaska, United States with commodity Tin
Map
XML
JSON
KML
C
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 10308384
Record type Site
Current site name Cape Creek Beach
Alternate or previous names American Tinfields, Inc.

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -167.95042, 65.55825 (WGS84)
Relative position This prospect is located at the mouth of Cape Creek (TE006) where it drains across the modern and recent beach deposits at Tin City on the Bering Sea coast. This area was included as part of locality 25 of Cobb and Sainsbury (1972). Cobb (1975) summarized relevant references under the names 'Cape Cr.' and 'American Tinfields, Inc.'.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Teller C-6 SW(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Teller NE(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Teller(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Tin Critical Primary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Cassiterite Ore

Mineral occurrence model information

Model code 123
USGS model code 39e
Deposit model name Alluvial placer Sn

Nearby scientific data

(1) -167.95042, 65.55825
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = These deposits have formed from the reworking of alluvial deposits by recent shorelines at the mouth of Cape Creek. Seventy-four churn-drill holes define a fan-shaped area of about 25 acres of cassiterite-bearing, wave-worked beach deposits peripheral to the Cape Creek drainage where it crosses a 1,000 foot -wide coastal zone before entering Bering Sea. This low coastal zone is a former lagoon that is now filled with prograded beach deposits. The tin-bearing deposits are 4 to 26 feet thick and commonly 10 to 15 feet thick. The churn-drill holes extended to bedrock. The beach deposits are frozen except along the modern beach. Tin grades in the beach placer are low; commonly a few hundreths to a few tenths pound of tin per cubic yard (Mulligan and Thorne, 1959, p. 46-47).
  • Age = Quaternary

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Prospect
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Inactive

Mining district

District name Port Clarence

Comments on the reserve resource information

  • Reserves = Not defined; tin grades are too low to have justified mining in the past.

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Exploration has included 74 churn-drill holes that delineate the deposit (Mulligan and Thorne, 1959, p. 45-47).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

  • Deposit

    Heide, H.E., and Sanford, R.S., 1948, Churn drilling at Cape Mountain tin placer deposits, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations 4345. 14 p.

  • Deposit

    Mulligan, J.J., and Thorne, R.L., 1959, Tin-placer sampling methods and results, Cape Mountain district, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Bureau of Mines Information Circular 7878, 69 p.

  • Deposit

    Cobb, E.H., and Sainsbury, C.L., 1972, Metallic mineral resource map of the Teller quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-426, 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

  • Deposit

    Sainsbury, C.L., 1972, Geologic map of the Teller quadrangle, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Map I-685, 4 p., 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

  • Deposit

    Cobb, E.H., 1975, Summary of references to mineral occurrences (other than mineral fuels and construction materials) in the Teller quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 75-587, 130 p.

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Mulligan and Thorne, 1959

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Beach tinplacer (related to alluvial tin placer (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39e)

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 10-MAY-1998 Travis L. Hudson Applied Geology

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.