Lake Creek

Site Name

Primary: Lake Creek

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Commodity

Primary: Gold

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Location

State: Alaska
District: Koyukuk

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Land Status

Not available

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Holdings

Not available

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Workings

Not available

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Ownership

Not available

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Production

Not available

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Deposit

Record Type: Site
Operation Category: Past Producer
Operation Type: Unknown
Years of Production:
Organization:
Significant:

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Physiography

Not available

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Mineral Deposit Model

Model Name: Placer Au-PGE

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Orebody

Not available

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Structure

Not available

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Alterations

Not available

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Rocks

Not available

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Analytical Data

Not available

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Materials

Ore: Gold

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Comments

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

Comment (Deposit): Other Comments = See also: Wakeup Creek (CH025). Alaska Kardex No. KX-031-9 (Kardex is a card file mining claim information system located at the State of Alaska DNR Public Information Center in Fairbanks).

Comment (Geology): Geologic Description = Lake Creek is reported to have a deep channel as well as the present channel (Reed, 1938). Mining has occurred both in the present channel near the mouth of the stream (location of reference point) and on the deep channel near the head of the creek. This creek heads against Wakeup Creek (CH025), another productive creek in the area, and the deep channel may be an extension of the Wakeup Creek high channel on the other side of the divide. ? When Reed (1938, p. 38-40) visited the creek in 1937, the present stream had been worked from about 300 feet south of its mouth at Bob Johnson (Big) Lake to 1,500 ft south of the lakeshore. The stream in this area was 10 to 20 ft wide and the gravel was 9 to 12 ft deep. The gravels are reported to be coarse schist 'slide' rock mixed with fine sand and coarse waterworn gravel (Reed, 1938). The gold recovered from the present channel reportedly is all coarse. The values obtained were about $0.50 per square foot of bedrock and the gold's fineness was reported to be 906.? Work on the old buried channel started in 1930 near the upper end of the creek. The depth to bedrock was 30 to 40 feet; 20 feet of this was a blue-gray mud and the rest gravel. The gold was finer than that recovered from the present channel workings and was on and in the upper 1 ft of bedrock. The bedrock was described as almost flat-lying gray schist (Reed, 1938). The gravel is coarse and waterworn with numerous erratic boulders and noticeable quantities of quartz.

Comment (Production): Production Notes = Gold was discovered in 1915 (Reed, 1938) and production noted as late as 1985 (Bundtzen and others, 1986).

Comment (Geology): Age = Quaternary.

Comment (Exploration): Status = Not determined

Comment (Reference): Primary Reference = Reed, 1938

Comment (Workings): Workings / Exploration = Surface mining on the present channel has been by ground sluicing and shoveling in open cuts (Reed, 1938). The deep channel was worked by drift mining. Two 38.5-ft shafts located the buried deep channel 150 to 180 feet north of the open-cut workings of the deep channel. One 76-foot shaft and one 40-foot shaft, 500 to 1000 feet from the open-cut workings on the deep channel, did not intersect that channel. Exploration activity on this creek was reported as late as 1990, but there were no details given.

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References

Reference (Deposit): Holdsworth, P.R., 1955, Report of the Commissioner of Mines for the biennium ended December 31, 1954: Alaska Territorial Department of Mines Annual Report 1954, 110 p.

Reference (Deposit): Brosgi, W.P., and Reiser, H.N., 1964, Geologic map and section of the Chandalar quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Geologic Investigations Map 1-375, 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

Reference (Deposit): Cobb, E.H., 1972, Metallic mineral resources map of the Chandalar quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-457, 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

Reference (Deposit): Cobb, E.H., 1976, Summary of references to mineral occurrences (other than mineral fuels and construction materials) in the Chandalar and Wiseman quadrangles, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 76-340, 205 p.

Reference (Deposit): DeYoung, J.H., Jr., 1978, Mineral resources map of the Chandalar quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-878-B, 2 sheets, scale 1:250,000.

Reference (Deposit): Heiner, L.E., and Wolff, E.N., eds., 1968, Mineral resources of northern Alaska, Final report, submitted to the NORTH Commission: Mineral Industry Research Laboratory, University of Alaska, Report 16, 306 p.

Reference (Deposit): Cobb, E.H., and Cruz, E.L., 1983, Summaries of data and lists of references to metallic and selected nonmetallic mineral deposits in the Chandalar quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 83-278, 91 p.

Reference (Deposit): Smith, P.S., 1936, Mineral industry in Alaska in 1934: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 868-A, p. 1-91.

Reference (Deposit): Roehm, J.C., 1949, Report of investigations and itinerary of J.C. Roehm in the Koyukuk precinct, Alaska: Alaska Territorial Department of Mines Itinerary Report 31-1, 9 p.

Reference (Deposit): Holdsworth, P.R., 1952, Report of the Commissioner of Mines for the Biennium ended December 31, 1952: Alaska Territorial Department of Mines Annual Report 1952, 66 p.

Reference (Deposit): Wimmler, N.L., 1925, Placer mining in Alaska in 1925: Alaska Territorial Department of Mines Miscellaneous Report 195-8, 118 p.

Reference (Deposit): Reed, I.M., 1938, Upper Koyukuk region, Alaska (Wiseman, Chandalar, and Bettles): Alaska Territorial Department of Mines Miscellaneous Report 194-7, 201 p.

Reference (Deposit): Maas, K.M., 1987, Maps summarizing land availability for mineral exploration and development in northern Alaska, 1986: U.S. Bureau of Mines Open-File Report 10-87, 33 quadrangle overlays.

Reference (Deposit): Dillon, J.T., 1982, Source of lode and placer gold deposits of the Chandalar and upper Koyukuk Districts: Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys Open-File Report 158, 25 p., 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

Reference (Deposit): Smith, P.S., 1932, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1929, in Smith, P.S., and others Mineral resources of Alaska, report on progress of investigations in 1929: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 824-A, p. 1-81.

Reference (Deposit): Smith, P.S., 1930, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1927: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 810-A, p. 1-64.

Reference (Deposit): Bundtzen, T.K., Eakins, G.R., Green, C.B. and Lueck, L.L., 1986, Alaska's mineral industry in 1985: Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys Special Report 39, 68 p.

Reference (Deposit): Swainbank, R.C., Bundtzen, T.K., and Wood, J.E., 1991, Alaska's Mineral Industry 1990: Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys Special Report 45, 78 p.

Reference (Deposit): Maas, K.M., 1987, Maps summarizing land availability for mineral exploration and development in northern Alaska, 1986: U.S. Bureau of Mines Open-File Report 10-87, 33 sheets.

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