Patterson Creek

The Patterson Creek is a gold mine located in Alaska.

About the MRDS Data:

All mine locations were obtained from the USGS Mineral Resources Data System. The locations and other information in this database have not been verified for accuracy. It should be assumed that all mines are on private property.

Mine Info

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Site Name

Primary: Patterson Creek

Commodity

Primary: Gold

Location

State: Alaska
District: Fairhaven

Land Status

Not available

Holdings

Not available

Workings

Not available

Ownership

Not available

Production

Not available

Deposit

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

Physiography

Not available

Mineral Deposit Model

Model Name: Placer Au-PGE

Orebody

Not available

Structure

Not available

Alterations

Not available

Rocks

Not available

Analytical Data

Not available

Materials

Ore: Gold

Comments

Comment (Reference): Primary Reference = Cobb, 1975 (OFR 75-429)

Comment (Workings): Workings / Exploration = Both drift and open-cut placer operations have taken place; most work has been surface open-cut operations.

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

Comment (Geology): Age = Quaternary

Comment (Exploration): Status = Active (1983)

Comment (Geology): Geologic Description = Placer gold was discovered on Patterson Creek early in the century and mining was reported to have taken place by 1909 (Henshaw (1910). Six to eight feet of gravel on blue clay was reported from early workings (Moffit, 1905). The gravel contains abundant vein quartz and quartzite, a few pebbles of limonite and barite(?), and rare fragments resembling altered rhyolite porphyry (Briskey, 1983). Mining was done by both drift and open-cut methods (Cobb, 1975, OFR 75-429). Drift mining is reported to have locally exposed galena-bearing veins (BN073) in bedrock. Mining operations may have taken place over a fair amount of the creek; it is about 2.4 miles long below the headwater tributaries. Bedrock is extensively covered by tundra but what is exposed in the area is part of a Lower Paleozoic metasedimentary assemblage (Till and others, 1986). A small granitic stock is exposed on the ridge south of upper Candle Creek (Till and others, 1986) and Sandvik (1956) notes that granitic rocks have been identified in the headwaters of Jump Creek and Minehaha Creek. Intermediate to felsic dikes and sills crosscutting metamorphic rocks have been exposed in placer workings along Candle Creek (BN074).

References

Reference (Deposit): Henshaw, F.F., 1910, Mining in Seward Peninsula: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 442, p. 353-371.

Reference (Deposit): Moffit, F.H., 1905, The Fairhaven gold placers, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 247, 85 p.

Reference (Deposit): Cobb, E.H., 1972, Metallic mineral resources map of the Bendeleben quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-417, 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

Reference (Deposit): Cobb, E.H., 1975, Summary of references to mineral occurrences (other than mineral fuels and construction materials) in the Bendeleben quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 75-429, 123 p.

Reference (Deposit): Sandvik, P.O., 1956, Report of diamond drilling for radioactive material near Candle, northeast Seward Peninsula: Alaska Territorial Department of Mines, 5 p.

Reference (Deposit): Till, A.B., Dumoulin, J.A., Gamble, B. ., Kaufman, D.S., and Carroll, P.I., 1986, Preliminary geologic map and fossil data, Soloman, Bendeleben, and southern Kotzebue quadrangles, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 86-276, 10 p., 3 plates, scale 1:250,000.

Reference (Deposit): Briskey, J.A., 1983, Summary of field observations on Seward Peninsula mineral deposits: U.S. Geological Survey, unpublished administrative report, 34 p.

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