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Arctic Creek (lower)

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 10308759
MRDS ID AO12876
Record type Site
Current site name Arctic Creek (lower)

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -165.79898, 64.60878 (WGS84)
Relative position Arctic Creek is an east tributary of lower Cripple River. The mouth of Arctic Creek is about 5 miles upstream from the mouth of Cripple River on Norton Sound. Two segments of the creek have been mined, probably with gold derived in part from two different sources. Lower Arctic Creek is the part of Arctic Creek below the confluence of Bluff Creek (NM154), an east tributary. This part of Arctic Creek was mined by a floating bucket line dredge. The location is the approximate mid-point of the placer tailings. Information for this mine was summarized by Cobb (locality 78, 1978 [OFR 78-93]) but his map location (Cobb, 1972 [MF 463]) is for upper Arctic Creek (NM153).

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-2(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)

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) DOnx
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = From 1914 to at least 1922, an alluvial placer gold deposit was mined along lower Arctic Creek by a floating bucket line dredge over at least a half mile, starting about 1 mile above its mouth. The placer in lower Arctic Creek appears to have gold sources other than those that supplied gold to the upper part of Arctic Creek (NM153). These sources include Bluff Creek (NM154) and the wall rocks of a discordant quartz-ankerite vein exposed in the bluffs opposite the mouth of Bluff Creek (NM157). The lower part of a south-flowing tributary to Arctic Creek about a half mile below Bluff Creek has also been placer mined and is included here. Arctic Creek is subparallel to the projection of a strong north-northeast fault mapped by Bundtzen and others (1994) as the Aurora fault. This fault is the control of vein mineralization (NM157). Strata along Arctic Creek near Bluff Creek are, in part, pyritic graphitic quartz schist, but most of the country rock is calcareous mica schist.
  • Age = Quaternary.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Probably inactive

Mining district

District name Nome

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = A bucket line dredge operated on the lower part of Arctic Creek from 1914 until at least 1922 (Eakin, 1915 [B 622-I, p. 366-373]); Harrington, 1921; Brooks, 1922; Brooks and Capps, 1924.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Cobb, 1978

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Alluvial placer Au (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 12-MAR-00 Hawley, C.C. and Hudson, Travis L. 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.