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Osceola District Placer Deposits

Past Producer in White Pine county in Nevada, 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. Public Land Survey System information
  6. Commodities
  7. Materials information
  8. Mineral occurrence model information
  9. Host and associated rocks
  10. Nearby scientific data
  11. Ore body information
  12. Controls for ore emplacement
  13. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  14. Mining district
  15. Land status
  16. Ownership information
  17. Bibliographic references
  18. General comments
  19. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10310456
MRDS ID M242208
Record type Site
Current site name Osceola District Placer Deposits
Alternate or previous names Dry Gulch Placers, Osceola Gravel Mining Co. (pre-1880), Osceola Placer Mining Co. (1880s), Grub Gulch, Maryann Canyon, Tilford Placers, Hogum, Solomon Placer Claims, Weaver Creek placers
Related records 10104119

Comments on the site identification

  • This record incorporates material from records M242208, M242204, M242200, and M242188 which all describe individual placer deposits in the Osceola district.

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -114.41224, 39.05605 (WGS84)
Elevation 2320
Relative position The Osceola District is located about 29 miles east of Ely at the north end of the Snake Range, south of Sacramento Pass.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

White Pine(county)

Nevada(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Hogum(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Ely(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Ely(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Spring-Steptoe Valleys(hydrologic unit)

Central Nevada Desert Basins(hydrologic accounting unit)

Central Nevada Desert Basins(hydrologic subregion)

Great Basin(hydrologic region)

Federal lands

Bureau of Land Management(Bureau of Land Management NV)

Bureau of Land Management NV BLM(Type of land area)

BLM(Federal land areas administered by BLM)

Geographic areas

Country State County
United States Nevada White Pine

Public Land Survey System information

Meridian Township Range Section Fraction State
Mount Diablo 014N 068E 07 18 Nevada
Mount Diablo 014N 067E 12 Nevada

Comments on the location information

  • The Osceola Placers include over 300 claims in Dry Gulch, Mary Ann Canyon (Hogum placers), Weaver Creek, Summit Creek, Grub Gulch, Jacks Gulch and other canyons on the west slopes of the Snake Range. UTM is to near center of workings, which cover a large area.

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary

Comments on the commodity information

  • Ore Materials: free gold

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

Host and associated rocks

  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Unconsolidated Deposit > Gravel
    Rock type qualifier fine to coarse, poorly sorted
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Quaternary

Nearby scientific data

(1) -114.41224, 39.05605
ListMap

Economic information

Ore body information

  • General form channels

Controls for ore emplacement

  • Placer gold is concentrated in channels above bedrock near the convergence of several dry gulches.

Comments on the geologic information

  • Bedrock is shale, limestone and quartzite.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Operation type Surface-Underground
Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic
Deposit size Large
Significant Yes
Discovery year 1877
Discoverer John Versan
Year of first production 1877
Production years sporadic but almost continuous from 1877 to present

Mining district

District name Osceola District

Land status

Ownership category Private
Ownership category BLM Administrative Area
Area name Ely BLM Administrative district

Ownership information

  • Type Owner
    Owner Goldwinn Resources
    Year 1981
  • Type Owner
    Owner Western Consolidated Mines
    Home office Denver CO
    Year 1981
  • Type Operator
    Owner Teck Corp
    Year 1981

Comments on the workings information

  • The placer channels were worked by sinking or drifting and sluicing in pre-1908 days. Ditch and flume lines were constructed bringing water from Baker and Lehman creeks; and another from Williams, Pine, Shingle, Ridge, and Willard creeks; dragline scrapers, old shafts, washing plant. The Hogum placers were worked with a portable placer machine in 1933-1934. Tunnels range from 50 to 350 ft in length. Some underground work has been done on each of the claims. The Gold Hill tunnel was 309 ft long to the south. On one side of the same claim is a 100-ft tunnel S60W, with a 100-ft drift to the south. The June tunnel is about 240 ft long. There had been recent surface backhoe and bulldozer work done in 1981 digging pits and trenches.

Comments on other economic factors

  • Production from the Osceola mines is estimated to have been worth about $1,923,799, which is prodominantly placer production but includes some lode production from Sacramento District mines between 1902 and 1959. The total production is estimated to have been 133,665 ounces of gold, and 129,651 ounces of silver.

Comments on development

  • The Osceola placer deposits were discovered about 1877, a fewyearsafter the lode gold deposits of the district were discovered. Although most of the placer gold was fine grained, a 25-pound gold nugget was found in Dry Gulch in 1877, the largest gold nugget ever recovered from a Nevada placer operation. Placers were worked by hand until the early 1880s when the most important claims were consolidated and the Osceola Placer Mining Company was organized to work the ground by hydraulicking and sluicing. They constructed 2 ditches about 34 miles long at a cost of $200,000, and hydraulicking continued until about 1900. In 1932, 100 men were employed working the placer deposits. In 1935 the 417-acre Hampton Placer in Dry Gulch was sampled and worked by Wagner Gold Placer Co. using 2 dragline scrapers and a washing plant.
    In the early days, a large area at the upper end of Weaver Creek, on the east side of the divide, was worked by Chinese. In 1932, an attempt was made to work the gravels adjacent to the creek by sluicing. Gravel was excavated and transported to the sluice by a small dragline scraper. Operations were hampered by large boulders and water on the bedrock. Operations here had diminished by 1935 at the time of the large operations on the other side of the divide. A fire nearly leveled the town in the 1940s, and placer mining was sporadic after that time.
    Mining activity in the district was renewed about 1980. Placer gold was being produced in 1981 on Weaver Creek, where a large backhoe and bulldozer were being used to feed a trammel, followed by screens and riffles.
    In 1981, Goldwinn Resources acquired an option to buy 33 1/3% of the old Solomon placer property, with Western Consolidated Mines of Denver CO, with Teck Corp as operator. Target date for production was then March, 1981.
    Placer mining continues to be done on a small scale in the district today.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit The Osceola placer deposits cover more than 1000 acres on 3-4 alluvial fans containing as much as 20 million cubic yards of material. Placer deposits occur in channels buried under material of the alluvial fan below the mouths of the canyons. They usually occur in a stratum overlying a so-called cement, or false bedrock at several levels. Sampling in 1935 identified 7 channels averaging 2 miles long and 60 ft wide. The depth of the gold-bearing gravel averages 30 ft. Gold is disseminated through the gravels, but the principal pay streak is near bedrock. The source of the gold was the lode deposits in Cambrian quartzites especially on the ridge west and south of Dry Gulch.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 01-DEC-2004 LaPointe, D.D. Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology
Editor 01-SEP-2007 Schruben, Paul G. U.S. Geological Survey Converted from S&A FileMaker format to Oracle. Edit checks on rocks, units, and ages with Geolex search, and other fields.

Beyond USGS

Supplemental information added by qvyshift.com. Not part of the original USGS MRDS record.

Maps centered on this site

Authoritative Nevada resources

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