Grubstake Gulch and Willow Creek area

Past Producer in Alaska, United States with commodities Gold, Copper, Tungsten
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 10308767
MRDS ID A011672
Record type Site
Current site name Grubstake Gulch and Willow Creek area
Related records 10161353, 10000987

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -149.43269, 61.75955 (WGS84)
Relative position Claims on Willow Creek above and below the mouth of Grubstake Gulch and those mines located on Grubstake Gulch near its mouth. Generalized location, accurate within a few hundred of feet upstream or downstream. Locality 69 of Cobb (1972) and locality 57 of MacKevett and Holloway (1977).

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Matanuska-Susitna(Borough)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Anchorage D-7(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Anchorage NW(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Anchorage(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Lower Susitna River(hydrologic unit)

Susitna River(hydrologic accounting unit)

South Central Alaska(hydrologic subregion)

Alaska(hydrologic region)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary
Copper Secondary
Tungsten Critical Secondary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold Ore
Scheelite 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) KJmu

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Both creek and bench gravels near confluence of Grubstake Gulch and Willow Creek have been mined for placer gold intermittently since 1897. Gold probably is from small quartz veins found in mica-schist bedrock (Cobb, 1973). The bedrock in the Grubstake Gulch drainage is Jurassic (?) quartz-albite-chlorite (+/- garnet-biotite) pelitic schist; minor Eocene hypabyssal mafic intrusions and serpentinized Cretaceous ultramafic rocks. Gold has been found in gravels up to 70 ft deep in the area (Green and others, 1989).
  • 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 Willow Creek

Comments on the production information

  • Production Notes = Cobb (1973) reported that Grubstake Gulch and the part of Willow Creek immediately below mouth of gulch probably account for considerably more than half the placer gold mined in the Willow Creek district.

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Creek gravels mined for 900 ft along Grubstake Creek in 1904-1906, reportedly 200 ft wide and 2.5 to 3 feet deep (Paige and Knopf, 1907). Gravels mined in 1960 were 12-20 ft deep and exploratory drill holes that were sunk 85-105 ft did not all reach bedrock. Hydraulic and small scale methods used. Bench gravels contain pannable gold, but large boulders make mining difficult (Ray, 1954).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Cobb, 1973, B 1374

General comments

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

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 30-JUL-1998 D.P. Bickerstaff; S.W. Huss U.S. Geological Survey

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.