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Lituya Bay Gold Mining Co.

Past Producer in Alaska, United States with commodities Gold, Iron, Titanium, PGE
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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 10308918
MRDS ID M045385
Record type Site
Current site name Lituya Bay Gold Mining Co.
Related records 10258164, 10103632

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -137.76214, 58.7067 (WGS84)
Relative position The beach placer extends for about 17 miles from Cape Fairweather southeasterly to La Chausee Spit at the north side of the mouth of Lituya Bay. Coordinates are the approximate mid-point of the placer deposit. The location is essentially that of figure C5 of Kimball and others (1978) which includes their blocks 2, 3, and 4 and sample lines 3-12. The northwest part of the placer deposit is in the Mt. Fairweather D-6 quadrangle.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Mount Fairweather C-6 NE(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Mount Fairweather NE(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Mount Fairweather(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Federal lands

Glacier Bay National Park(National Park)

National Park UND(Type of land area)

UND(Federal land areas administered by UND)

Glacier Bay National Park(National Park)

National Park NPS(Type of land area)

NPS(Federal land areas administered by NPS)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary
Iron Primary
Titanium Critical Primary
PGE Critical Secondary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Ilmenite Ore
Magnetite Ore
Rutile Ore
Zircon Ore
Garnet Gangue

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) -137.76214, 58.7067
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = The beach, and related older upland placer deposits that were produced at higher sea stands, occur as layers and lenses of heavy minerals concentrated as lighter materials are washed away by alluvial and littoral processes. On the modern beach valuable transient deposits are formed, especially during heavy spring storms. The economically valuable minerals occur in ruby and black sands that , respectively, are rich in garnet and in magnetite or ilmenite. The heavy sands also contain epidote, olivine, pyroxene, sphene and staurolite as well as remnant amounts of quartz, feldspar, and light rock fragments. Some of the richest deposits exploited in the early years of the Twentieth century were near Eagle and Echo Creeks. Wright and Wright (1907, p. 64-65) proposed that these creeks brought down weakly metalliferous sediments that were further concentrated by surf action into transient valuable heavy sand deposits. Other deposits probably form by reworking of glacial outwash and gravels brought down from the Fairweather Range and adjacent hard bed hills. Some platinum has been reported (Mertie, 1918, p. 23). PGEs and ilmenite and magnetite have their ultimate source in deposits associated with the layerered gabbro intrusions of the Fairweather Range.
  • Age = Holocene.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Mining district

District name Yakutat

Comments on the production information

  • Production Notes = Production in 1891 $15,000 was reported by Wright and Wright (1907), who also noted 'In later years even higher returns are said to have been maintained, but no authentic statements could be obtained.' Mertie (1933) proposed that about 4000 ounces of gold had been produced between 1890 and 1917.

Comments on the reserve resource information

  • Reserves = Kimball and others (1978, table C23) calculated about 2,732,000 cubic yards of material from sample lines 3-12 and blocks 2-3. The largest resource, however, 1,809,000 cubic yards, contains less than 1 percent of ilmenite and only about .0003 ounce/cubic yard in gold. Small blocks totaling about 43,000 cubic yards near Eagle and Echo Creeks contain about 2.5 percent ilmenite and average as much as 0.0008 ounce per cubic yard gold. Foley and others (1995) reported 0.564 ppm gold and 4.09 percent ilmenite in a spiral concentrate split of sample 301.

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = The area was first mined by Americans in about 1886 (Brooks, 1918, p. 41). About $15,000 worth of gold was mined in 1891 (Wright and Wright, 1907, p. 64-65). In 1901, Lituya Bay Gold Mining Company tried to establish large-scale placer operations near the mouths of Eagle and Echo Creeks, but were unsuccessful because of the limited size of the pay streaks and difficulties in moving equipment and hydraulic systems (Wright and Wright, 1907, p. 64-65). Nonetheless, the area was mined on a small scale amost continuously from 1891 until World War II. In addition to the reports cited above, yearly resource reports by the U.S. Geological Survey indicate nearly continuous small scale mining. These reports include Brooks (1919, 1922, 1923, and 1925), Brooks and Martin (1921), Brooks and Capps (1924), Martin (1920) and Mertie (1933). P. S. Smith reported activity in the reports issued in 1934, 1936, 1937, 1938, two reports in 1939, 1941 and 1942. There was a lesser amount of gold activity after World War II, but claims were probably maintained. Summary reports include those by Cobb in 1972 (MF-436 and OFR-508), Berg and Cobb in 1967, and Cobb in 1973. More recent work has concentrated on valuable industrial minerals, notably ilmenite. Extensive sampling programs for the U.S. Bureau of Mines were undertaken by Thomas and Berryhill (1962), Kimball and others (1978, figure C5 and C11 to C18, tables C8 to C12), and Foley and others, (1995, fig. 17). Rossman (1957) and MacKevett and others (1971) studied the area for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Kimball and others, 1978; Foley and others, 1995

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Beach placer and related upland buried placers; possibly offshore deposits.
Deposit Other Comments = The beach placers are in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Claims could still exist, but probably the site is inactive. The recovery of the very fine-grained gold of the Lituya area by flotation and non-traditional gravity methods has been studied by Cook (1969). The beach system is part of a very extensive system of heavy-mineral beaches along the west coast of North America (Clifton and Luepke, 1987).

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 08-APR-99 Hawley, C.C. 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.