Quartz Creek (Ear Mountain area)

Occurrence in Alaska, United States with commodity Tin
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 10308424
Record type Site
Current site name Quartz Creek (Ear Mountain area)

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -166.33445, 65.9033 (WGS84)
Relative position Quartz Creek is an east tributrary to Tuttle Creek that drains the southwest flank of Ear Mountain. It crosses the contact zone, and has headwaters in, the Ear Mountain granite stock (Sainsbury, 1972). Ear Mountain is an isolated upland reaching 2,329 feet elevation in the north-central Teller D-3 quadrangle. Three USBM churn-drill holes were completed at about 370 feet elevation and two were completed at about 680 feet elevation on this creek (Mulligan, 1959, p. 20). Coordinates for this occurrence are for the location at the lower elevation. This is locality 51 of Cobb and Sainsbury (1972). Cobb (1975) summarized references to this location under the name 'Quartz Cr.'.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Nome(Census area)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Teller D-3(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Teller NE(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Teller C(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Shishmaref(hydrologic unit)

Northern Seward Peninsula(hydrologic accounting unit)

Northwest(hydrologic subregion)

Alaska(hydrologic region)

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) -166.33445, 65.9033

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Quartz Creek crosses the contact zone, and has headwaters in, the Ear Mountain granite stock (Sainsbury, 1972). This is a Late Cretaceous (76.7 +/- 2.9 my; Hudson and Arth, 1983, p. 769) composite biotite granite that intrudes an impure and schistose carbonate sequence, with some metapelitic rocks, of unknown but probable Paleozoic age. Three USBM churn-drill holes were completed at about 370 feet elevation and two were completed at about 680 feet elevation on this creek (Mulligan, 1959, p. 20). Coordinates for this occurrence are for the location at the lower elevation. These churn-drill holes encountered 3 to 6.5 feet of gravel. The lower part of the gravel and adjacent bedrock contained a trace of tin per cubic yard in two of the holes at 370 feet elevation. Minerals identified in samples here include quartz, calcite, oligoclase, orthoclase, garnet, diopside, and traces of pyrite, limonite, idocrase, tourmaline, epidote, chlorite, biotite, actinolite, and muscovite. Tin-bearing minerals were not identified (Mulligan, 1959, p. 30) although heavy mineral concentrates from this creek contained monazite, zircon, cassiterite, zenotime, apatite, and scapolite (Killeen and Ordway, 1955, p. 81-82).
  • Age = Quaternary

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Occurrence

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Inactive

Mining district

District name Port Clarence

Comments on the reserve resource information

  • Reserves = Not defined

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = A total of 5 churn-drill holes were completed on this creek (Mulligan, 1959, p. 20).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Mulligan, 1959 (USBM RI 5493)

General comments

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

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 10-MAY-98 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.