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Dime Creek

Past Producer in Alaska, United States with commodities Gold, Chromium, Platinum
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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. 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 10308793
MRDS ID A015729
Record type Site
Current site name Dime Creek
Alternate or previous names Haycock, Dime Creek Dredging Co., Dime Creek Mining Co., Haycock Mining Co., Moon and Ryan, Smith
Related records 10136176, 10003191

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -161.16329, 65.20939 (WGS84)
Relative position The Dime Creek gold placer mine is just east of the village of Haycock. It is in section 20, T. 3 S., R. 12 W., of the Kateel River Meridian. At various times, this site has been referred to as Haycock, Dime Creek Dredging Company, Dime Creek Mining Company, Haycock Mining Company, Moon and Ryan, and Smith. Cobb, 1972 (MF-389), location 45.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Nome(Census area)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Candle A-5(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Candle S(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Candle(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Norton Bay(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
Chromium Critical Secondary
Platinum Critical Secondary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Chromite Ore
Gold Ore
Platinum 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) -161.16329, 65.20939
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Dime Creek flows near a fault (?) contact between Paleozoic metalimestones and Jurassic-Cretaceous andesites. The andesites are intruded by small, mafic and ultramafic plutons. At the old placer mine, the gold is mainly on metamorphosed, andesite bedrock; some gold also is in the overlying 2 to 3 feet of gravel. In the stream bed the paystreak is well defined, while on the benches there are several, linear concentrations of gold. These bench concentrations were thought to be caused by wave action. Assays of gold from Dime Creek returned as high as 961 parts gold and 32 parts silver. The placers also contained platinum in approximate ratio to gold of 1:200. Analysis of platinum minerals from concentrate gave the following results: 88.8% Pt, I4.7% Ir, 4.3% Os + Ir, 1.1% Rh, 1.1% Pd (Mertie, 1969). The placer deposits in the upper portion of the creek produced almost twice as much platinum as the lower claims. On both creek and bench claims the overburden thickness ranges from 10 to 30 feet ; all of the ground was frozen. Heavy minerals in the concentrate from a second tier bench claim include iron-oxides, abundant chrome spinel, olivine, pyroxene, rare garnet, and rutile (Harrington, 1919).
  • Age = Quaternary.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Inactive

Mining district

District name Koyuk

Comments on the production information

  • Production Notes = On the lower end of Dime Creek, one ounce of platinum was produced for every 250 ounces of gold. On the upper claims there may have been as much as one ounce of platinum produced for every per 100 ounces of gold. A total of 35 ounces of platinum was recovered from placers at Dime Creek in 1917 (Harrington, 1919). Most of the 56 ounces of platinum reported from the Seward Peninsula in 1918 came from Dime Creek (Cathcart, 1920). Brooks and Martin (1921) report 32 ounces of platinum from the Dime Creek area.

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = The Dime Creek placers were mined intermittently from 1915 through at least the early 1990's. The deposits were worked mostly by drift and open-cut mining. A small dredge operated from 1931 to 1940.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Harrington, 1919; Mertie, 1969

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Placer Au-PGE (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).
Deposit Other Comments = Stream gradient is approximately 50 feet per mile.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 12-JAN-00 Williams, Anita U.S. Geological Survey

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.