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

Step Creek

Occurrence 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 10308426
Record type Site
Current site name Step Creek
Alternate or previous names Step Gulch

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -166.19145, 65.8913 (WGS84)
Relative position Step Creek is a north tributary to Crosby Creek with headwaters that extend across the south contact zone into the Ear Mountain granite stock. Ear Mountain is an isolated upland reaching 2,329 feet elevation in the north-central Teller D-3 quadrangle. It is cored by a Late Cretaceous granite stock (Sainsbury, 1972). This location includes localities 54 and 57 of Cobb and Sainsbury (1972). Cobb (1975) summarized references to these localities under the name 'Step Gulch'. Step Gulch is the headwater part of Step Creek.

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) -166.19145, 65.8913
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Step Creek crosses the contact zone of the Ear Mountain biotite granite stock. 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. The country rocks are variably converted to tactite and hornfels around the granite stock (Knopf, 1908, p. 28-29). .One USBM churn-drill hole at about 400 feet elevation in the lower part of the creek indicated 0.05 pounds of tin per cubic yard in a 10-foot thick gravel section and 2 feet of underlying bedrock. A sample from this hole contained quartz, orthoclase, albite, oligoclase, and tourmaline with smaller amounts of grossularite garnet, idocrase, diopside, ankerite, pyrite, zoisite, epidote, chlorite and limonite pseudomorphs after pyrite. Cassiterite was also identified in very small amounts (Mulligan, 1959, p. 29). Pan concentrate material from the headwater gulch over granite bedrock contained cassiterite, monazite, zircon, and 0.142% eU (Killeen and Ordway, 1955).
  • 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 workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = One USBM churn-drill hole on the lower part of the creek (approximately 400 feet elevation) was completed (Mulligan, 1959, p. 20).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Killeen and Ordway, 1955; 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.

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.