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Monroeville Beach

Producer in Alaska, United States with commodities Gold, Silver
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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. Host and associated rocks
  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 10002090
MRDS ID A012950
Record type Site
Current site name Monroeville Beach
Related records 10258037

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -165.41299, 64.53039 (WGS84)
Relative position Monroeville Beach is a buried gold placer on bedrock at an elevation of about 35 to 45 feet. It is buried by deposits of the Nome coastal plain in an area where surface elevations range from about 100 to 125 feet. It is about 2 miles inland from the modern beach at Nome and extends in a northwest-southeast direction semi-parallel to the modern beach for about 1.5 miles between Little Creek and Bourbon Creek. The Saturday Creek (NM294) placer mine appears to be located on the trace of Monroeville Beach about a half mile west of Bourbon Creek. The map location is at the eastern end of placer workings along Monroeville Beach, in the SE1/4 section 14, T. 11 S., R. 34 W., Kateel River Meridian. This is locality 129 of Cobb (1972 [MF 463], 1978 [OFR 78-93]).

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Nome(Census area)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Nome C-1(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Solomon NW(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Nome(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Nome(hydrologic unit)

Norton Sound(hydrologic accounting unit)

Northwest(hydrologic subregion)

Alaska(hydrologic region)

Federal lands

Sitnasuak Native Corporation(ANCSA Village)

ANCSA Village NTVPIC(Type of land area)

NTVPIC(Federal land areas administered by NTVPIC)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary
Silver Secondary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Arsenopyrite Ore
Gold Ore
Magnetite Ore
Pyrite Ore

Host and associated rocks

  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Unconsolidated Deposit > Sand and Gravel
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Pleistocene

Nearby scientific data

(1) -165.41299, 64.53039
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Monroeville Beach is an abrasion platform gold placer deposit at about 35 to 45 feet above sealevel that developed as Third Beach was being formed. The main deposit was traced for about a mile between Little and Holyoke Creeks (Moffit, 1913, p. 119). The placer continues as a low-grade deposit to a point just west of Dry Creek and possibly below Newton Gulch to Otter Creek (Metcalfe and Tuck, 1942).? the width of the deposit in its productive section near Center Creek was 300 to 500 feet. Much of the detritus associated with the gold was coarse grained, and ruby sand was lacking. The gold also was coarse-grained; it mainly occurred in about a 1-foot-thick zone above schist bedrock. About 2 to 3 feet of schist were mined with the pay gravel. Arsenopyrite, pyrite, and magnetite were abundant in concentrates. The placer deposit was covered by about 50 feet of frozen gravel and muck.? Tuck and Metcalfe (1942, p. 33 and 35) proposed that the Monroeville so called beach and other similar deposits was formed as an advancing sea eroded and redistributed a previously existing beach deposit. Unlike the strandline beaches, the abrasion deposits are not marked by an upper escarpment.
  • Age = Quaternary.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Active?

Mining district

District name Nome

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Mostly worked by drifting from shafts. The deposit was discovered about 1906.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

  • Deposit

    Moffit, F.H., 1913, Geology of the Nome and Grand Central quadrangles, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 533, 140 p.

  • Deposit

    Metcalfe, J.B., and Tuck, Ralph, 1942, Placer gold deposits of the Nome district, Alaska: Report for U.S. Smelting, Refining, and Mining Co., 175 p.

  • Deposit

    Cobb, E.H., 1972, Metallic mineral resources map of the Nome quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-463, 2 sheets, scale 1:250,000.

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Metcalfe and Tuck, 1942

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Placer; marine abrasion platform deposit.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 10-JUL-00 Hawley, C.C. Hawley Resource Group
Reporter 10-JUL-00 Travis L. Hudson Hawley Resource Group

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.