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Coffee Creek

Past Producer in Alaska, United States with commodities Gold, Mercury
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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 10001908
MRDS ID A012738
Record type Site
Current site name Coffee Creek
Related records 10208629

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -164.70225, 65.31238 (WGS84)
Relative position Coffee Creek crosses the Nome-Taylor road at about mile 74 and again at almost mile 75. Placer mining took place for about 8,500 feet downstream from the Nome-Taylor road crossing at about mile 75. Coffee Creek merges with Quartz Creek to become Whelan Creek 10,000 feet downstream from the lower mine workings. Small tributaries to the mined section of Coffee Creek, including Dome Creek and Wonder Gulch (BN005), were mined adjacent to Coffee Creek and are included as part of this locality. Coffee Creek is location 45 of Cobb (1972; MF 417).

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Nome(Census area)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Bendeleben B-6(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Bendeleben SW(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Bendeleben(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Imuruk Basin(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
Mercury Secondary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Cerussite Ore
Cinnabar Ore
Gold Ore
Pyromorphite 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 Metamorphic Rock > Schist

Nearby scientific data

(1) -164.70225, 65.31238
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Up to 25 feet of muck covered, gold-bearing stream gravels were initially mined in 1901 here (Collier, 1902). The lower part of the mined drainage is cut into alluvial terrace gravels, the Kougarok gravel, (Hopkins, 1963) but most of the mined drainage is on low grade Lower Paleozoic metasedimentary bedrock (Till and others, 1986). Kougarok gravel carries small amounts of gold (Sainsbury and others, 1969; Sainsbury, 1975) but at least part of the gold in Coffee Creek appears to be derived from local bedrock sources. A residual placer contains angular, spongy, and bright gold in 4 to 7 feet of angular schist and quartz and adjacent weathered schist bedrock (Collier and others, 1908) in the headwaters of Wonder Gulch (BN005). Small amounts of cinnabar are present in placer concentrate from Coffee Creek and Wonder Gulch; cerussite and pyromorphite are also present in concentrate from Wonder Gulch (Anderson, 1947).
  • 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 Kougarok

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Various combinations of hand, scraper, dozer, dragline, and sluice surface operations have taken place along 8,500 feet of the Coffee Creek drainage and the adjacent 1,000 feet of Dome Creek, and 1,500 feet of Wonder Gulch (Sainsbury and others, 1969). Early mining included winter underground drifting and summer sluicing (Cobb, 1975).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Cobb, 1975

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Placer Au-PGE (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a)

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 15-MAR-1999 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.