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Deadwood Creek

Producer in Alaska, United States with commodities Gold, Silver, Mercury, Lead, Tin, Tungsten
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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 10308808
MRDS ID A012208
Record type Site
Current site name Deadwood Creek
Alternate or previous names Forty Three Pup, Twenty Five Pup, Sixteen Pup, Fifteen Pup, Nine Pup, Discovery Gulch, Tommys Pup, Switch Creek, Twenty Two Pup, Twenty Six Pup
Related records 10282050, 10001459

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -144.92892, 65.46474 (WGS84)
Relative position The location is the confluence of Discovery Gulch and Deadwood Creek about 9 miles southwest of Circle Hot Springs. The placered area extends about 4.5 miles upstream and downstream from this point, and up the following tributaries to Deadwood Creek: Fortythree Pup, Twenty-five Pup, Sixteen Pup, Fifteen Pup, Nine Pup, Discovery Gulch, Tommys Pup, Switch Creek, Twenty-two Pup, and Twenty-six Pup.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Yukon-Koyukuk(Census area)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Circle B-2(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Circle SE(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Circle(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Alaska(hydrologic region)

Federal lands

BLM(Federal land areas administered by BLM)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary
Silver Secondary
Mercury Secondary
Lead Secondary
Tin Critical Secondary
Tungsten Critical Secondary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Cassiterite Ore
Cinnabar Ore
Gold Ore
Scheelite Ore
Wolframite 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) PzPxyqs
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Deadwood Creek flows through a northeast-trending valley for about 16 km where it then enters the Tintina fault trench and flattens into a broad fan. The creek meanders for another 8 km before emptying into Crooked Creek. Almost all of the gold produced to date has come from the portion of Deadwood Creek above the Tintina fault trench. Deadwood Creek drainage lies within the 'Lower Schist' bedrock unit described by Wiltse and others (1995) as 'medium to dark gray and medium greenish-gray, fine to medium grained, commonly slightly calcareous quartz-muscovite schist, and lesser amounts of quartzose porphyroblastic-albite-chlorite schist and chlorite schist.' Numerous quartz veins ranging from less than a centimeter to almost a meter in width are present in the schists. Some quartz veins are folded with the enclosing schist; however, most veins cut across the foliation and are not folded. Disseminated pyrite and galena are locally present in the schist in the upper part of Deadwood Creek valley (Yeend, 1991). Granite outcrops are seen in the lower 6 km of the creek valley, south of the Hot Springs Fault contact. Gravel in Deadwood Creek ranges from 1 to 5 meters in thickness, with as much as 3 meters of muck overburden. Boulders are up to 1 meter in diameter, but more commonly are 0.3 meter in diameter. Several wide benches mantled with gold-bearing gravel occur along the northwest side of the valley. The paystreak was as much as 130 m in width. In areas of quartzite bedrock, gold was found as deep as 1 m in cracks and crevices. Some nuggets weighed as much as 0.5 oz, but in general the gold was flaky and fine, averaging 5 to 6 mg (Mertie, 1938). Large amounts of wolframite and cassiterite (1 to 2 pounds per cubic yard) were present in the heavy-mineral fraction of the concentrates recovered in several mining operations, especially those immediately above the mouth of Switch Creek (Johnson, 1910). Mertie (1938) reported that tin and tungsten mineralization in the bedrock occurred south of the southernmost outcrop of granite. Other heavy minerals detected in concentrates are magnetite, ilmenite, arsenopyrite, pyrite, galena, limonite, garnet, scheelite, and cinnabar. Small amount of uranium were detected in several of these minerals (Eberlein and others, 1977). Burand (1965) reported anomalous amounts of copper, zinc, and lead in sediments. A reconnaissance soil sampling program on a ridge near Discovery Gulch outlined an area of seven samples ranging in value from 30 to 1125 ppb Au and associated elevated arsenic values (La Teko Resources Ltd, news release, January 6, 1998).

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Active

Mining district

District name Circle

Comments on the production information

  • Production Notes = 110 men working 8 out of the 47 claims produced approximately 5,000 oz of gold during 1896 (Dunham, 1898). Yield of 2 to 3 oz 'to the shovel' were not uncommon (2 to 3 oz of gold could be recovered from the gravel shoveled by a man in a 10-hour day). Total production from 1894 to 1906 was 33,865 fine ounces (Brooks, 1907).

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Mining on Deadwood Creek has been nearly continous since the original gold discovery. In the early years, placers were mined by drifting and shallow opencuts. After 1909, hydraulic mining became the primary method. In 1936, there were six individually owned placer mining operations on the creek - two hydraulic plants, two opencut operations, one drift mine and one mechanical excavation operation (Mertie, 1938). A dragline excavator used in 1936-37 cleared 3000 sq ft of bedrock daily. A dredge used in 1937-38 had 60 buckets of 4 cf capacity running at 27 buckets per minute (Mertie, 1938). Recent mines have been operating on the gravel near and just upstream from the Hot Springs fault (Yeend, 1991). In 1996 and 1997, LaTeko Resources Ltd. conducted geological mapping, soil sampling, and trenching with results indicating anomalous gold values. The anomalies appear to be associated with a northwest-trending granitic intrusion. Several samples returned better than 100 parts per billion gold (LaTeko Resources Ltd. Annual Report, 1997).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Menzie, 1983; Yeend, 1991.

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Placer gold deposit (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a); Polymetallic mineralization associated with granite.
Deposit Other Comments = The entire length of the Deadwood Creek flood plain has been mined for gold, and the creek has a reputation among miners as being the most 'mined-out' creek in the Circle district (Yeend, 1991, p. 17). See also Switch Creek, ARDF no. CI056.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 08-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.

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.