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Dahl Creek

Past Producer in Alaska, United States with commodity Gold
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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 10001912
MRDS ID A012743
Record type Site
Current site name Dahl Creek
Related records 10185058

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -164.7253, 65.35932 (WGS84)
Relative position Dahl Creek is a northeast -flowing tributary to Quartz Creek. Quartz Creek crosses the Nome-Taylor road at about mile 78.5 at Brakes Bottom. The mouth of Dahl Creek on Quartz Creek is about 8,000 feet upstream from the road crossing. This location is the lower 10,000 feet of Dahl Creek, all of which has been placer mined (Sainsbury and others, 1969). This drainage is included as part of locality 42 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

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold 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) -164.7253, 65.35932
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = The lower 10,000 feet of Dahl Creek has been placer mined for gold. This mining, starting as early as 1901, has been by various open-cut methods but dozer and sluice operations took place as recently as 1967 (Sainsbury and others, 1969). Some of the gold is coarse and some is intergrown with quartz. A nugget worth $200 (10 ounces?) was recovered in 1931 (Smith, 1933). The gold-bearing gravels are covered by fozen muck from which mammoth and horse bones have been recovered (Collier, 1902). Bench placers were also mined along the lower creek. This part of the creek is just west of Kougarok gravel deposits of Pliocene-Pleistocene age (Hopkins, 1963; Till and others, 1986). The bench gravels, which are about 50 feet above the active drainage and covered by 15 to 20 feet of muck, carry gold in 3 to 4 feet of gravel on a clay bottom (Collier and others, 1908). Brooks (1905) reported that drilling showed the bench gravels to a depth of 180 feet. Early reports described the alluvial pay in the main drainage to be on a false bedrock of clay below which there was a quartz gravel (Collier and others, 1908). A test shaft, which did not reach bedrock, indicated this deep gravel to be at least 187 feet thick. However, Sainsbury and others (1969) reported clay-altered zones with broken quartz veins in bedrock and concluded that the false bedrock described by early reports was instead altered bedrock. Bedrock is locally exposed in the area, primarily on the crest of nearby uplands, but Sainsbury and others (1969) note some bedrock in the drainage 7,000 feet above the mouth. All known bedrock in the area is part of a low grade, Lower Paleozoic metasedimentary assemblage (Sainsbury and others, 1969; Till and others, 1986). Sainsbury and others (1969) emphasize that gold placers in this area are most strongly associated with exposures of the metamorphic bedrock assemblage rather than with Kougarok gravel.
  • 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 = The lower 10,000 feet of Dahl Creek has been placer mined for gold. This mining, starting as early as 1901, has been by various open-cut methods, but dozer and sluice operations took place as recently as 1967 (Sainsbury and others, 1969). At least one deep (187 feet) test shaft is reported.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Cobb, 1975 (OFR 75-429)

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Placer Au-PGE (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a)
Deposit Other Comments = Unnamed tributaries to Quartz Creek are reported to have scheelite in placer concentrates (Anderson, 1947).

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.