Deep Faith

Prospect in Alaska, United States with commodity Gold
Sections on this page
  1. Identification information
  2. Geographic coordinates
  3. Site location context
  4. Geographic areas
  5. Commodities
  6. Materials information
  7. Nearby scientific data
  8. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  9. Mining district
  10. Links to other databases
  11. Bibliographic references
  12. General comments
  13. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10308548
Record type Site
Current site name Deep Faith

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -146.40896, 65.38371 (WGS84)
Relative position The location is the approximate center of the Deep Faith claim block. The claim block is located 75 road miles northeast of Fairbanks along the Steese Highway. The property is accessible via a short gravel road which is maintained by the State and local placer mine operators. The claim block consists of 64 state mining claims and 20 prospecting sites covering 5720 acres.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Fairbanks North Star(Borough)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Circle B-5(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Circle SW(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Circle(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Alaska(hydrologic region)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold Ore

Nearby scientific data

(1) -146.40896, 65.38371

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = The following description is largely from Wold, 1998. The Deep Faith claim block lies within the Yukon-Tanana Crystalline terrane of interior Alaska. Regional strike of bedrock compositional layering in this area is easterly to northeasterly, and faults trend subparallel to this structural grain. Large-scale folding is represented by northeasterly- to easterly-trending broad open antiforms and associated synforms. Stratigraphy of the Deep Faith claim block area is represented by a series of upper proterozoic and lower Paleozoic sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks consisting of the lower Fairbanks pelitic schists, the graphitic schist of the Cleary Sequence, the quartzite and quartz mica schist of the upper Fairbanks schist, and phyllitic schists and quartzites of the 'grit and metagrit sequence' (Smith, 1987). Several intrusives occur within the claim block and are part of the Hope granite suite. This series of plutons is part of a larger belt of Upper Cretaceous and lower Tertiary plutons which extends from southwest of Fairbanks northeast into Yukon Territory. The earliest report of lode deposits described contact veins (Prindle, 1910). In 1926, a stibnite deposit was reported during the construction of a bedrock drain on Hope Creek (Joesting, 1943). Quartz veins containing small lenses and stringers of stibnite, explored by short tunnels in the 1920's off Sourdough Creek, contained over 27 percent Sb (Killeen and Mertie, 1951). Samples collected from dumps in 1966 contained 23 percent stibnite (Berg and Cobb, 1967). There are several other lode occurrences in the area. Hope Creek has an antimony-copper-lead-molybdenum-tungsten occurrence (Joesting, 1943). The Faith/Charity Creeks stratiform gold deposit was described by Smith and others (1987), who measured a 170 ft section along Charity Creek that contains anomalous gold (14 ppb), lead (720 ppm), arsenic (140 ppm), and silver (500 ppb). The deposit is composed mostly of gray laminated quartzite and graphitic schist. Select samples from veins in the graphitic schist contain 4800 ppb gold. Veins along Faith Creek contains pyrite, sphalerite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite and stibnite. The Hope Creek tin-silver occurrence is hosted in the Hope granite suite and there are wollastonite/pyroxene-bearing skarns within 100 ft of the contact with the pluton.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Prospect
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Inactive

Mining district

District name Fairbanks

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = The state conducted an extensive geologic survey in the area during the mid-1980's and identified several potential lode deposits on the Faith Creek drainage.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

  • Deposit

    Killeen, P.L., and Mertie, J.B., 1951, Antimony ore in the Fairbanks District, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 51-46, 43 p.

  • Deposit

    Berg, H.C., and Cobb, E.H., 1967, Metalliferous Lode Deposits of Alaska. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1246, 254 p.

  • Deposit

    Wold, K., 1998, Deep Faith prospect, interior Alaska: Fairbanks, Alaska, Northern Fermentations, 11 p.

  • Deposit

    Smith, T.E., Pessel, G. H., and Wiltse, M.A., 1987, Mineral assessment of the Lime Peak-Mt. Prindle area, Alaska: Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys Miscellaneous Paper 29, 712 p., 13 sheets, scale 1:63,360.

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Wold, 1998.

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Various polymetallic stratiform deposits in schist; also polymetallic veins and skarns.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 14-SEP-1998 C.J. Freeman, J.R. Guidetti Schaefer, A.S. Clements Avalon Development Corporation

Beyond USGS

Supplemental information added by qvyshift.com. Not part of the original USGS MRDS record.

Authoritative Alaska resources

These are landing pages for further research — the state agencies don't currently expose per-mine deep links.