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Sunset Creek

Past Producer in Alaska, United States with commodities Gold, 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 10309022
MRDS ID A016067
Record type Site
Current site name Sunset Creek
Related records 10185115, 10101037

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -166.26438, 65.33128 (WGS84)
Relative position Sunset Creek is a southwest-flowing stream whose mouth is on the north shore of Grantley Harbor, 4 miles northeast of Teller and 6.25 miles southeast of Brevig Mission. Placer mining operations took place 1.4 to 2.1 miles upstream from the mouth at surface elevations of about 40 to 110 feet (Sainsbury and others, 1969). This is locality 66 of Cobb and Sainsbury (1972). Cobb (1975) summarized relevant references under the name 'Sunset Cr.'.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Nome(Census area)

Alaska(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Teller B-3(quadrangle 1:63,360 scale)

Teller SE(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Teller C(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Imuruk Basin(hydrologic unit)

Norton Sound(hydrologic accounting unit)

Northwest(hydrologic subregion)

Alaska(hydrologic region)

Federal lands

Brevig Mission Corporation(ANCSA Village)

ANCSA Village NTVPIC(Type of land area)

NTVPIC(Federal land areas administered by NTVPIC)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary
Tungsten Critical Primary

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) -166.26438, 65.33128
ListMap

Economic information

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = Bedrock in the Sunset Creek drainage is a chlorite and mica schist assemblage that is locally intruded by small greenstone bodies (Sainsbury, 1972); the age of this assemblage is uncertain but it is probably Paleozoic. Quaternary basalt flows are present at higher elevations in some headwater areas. Small quartz veins are common in the schist bedrock. The placer gold deposit , at least locally high grade, is in a few to several feet of fine gravel on schist and greenstone bedrock that also contains gold in the upper three feet. Scheelite was abundant enough to have been saved during some operations. Mining took place at several different times between 1901 and 1946 and employed several different methods, including dredging and hydraulicking (Cobb, 1975).The deposit is at elevations where Quaternary marine transgressions may have modified the alluvial placer (Sainsbury and others, 1969).
  • Age = Quaternary

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Probably inactive

Mining district

District name Port Clarence

Comments on the production information

  • Production Notes = Not known

Comments on the reserve resource information

  • Reserves = Not defined

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = Placer mining operations took place 1.4 to 2.1 miles upstream from the mouth at surface elevations of about 40 to 110 feet (Sainsbury and others, 1969). This included mining by several different methods including dredging and hydraulicking.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Cobb, 1975

General comments

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

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 10-MAY-1998 Travis L. Hudson Applied Geology

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.