Grouse Creek

The Grouse 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: Grouse Creek

Commodity

Primary: Gold

Location

State: Alaska
District: Nome

Land Status

Not available

Holdings

Not available

Workings

Not available

Ownership

Not available

Production

Not available

Deposit

Record Type: Site
Operation Category: Past 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
Ore: Hematite

Comments

Comment (Workings): Workings / Exploration = Grouse Creek was prospected and mined at least as early as 1903. It carried a considerable flow of water and was active during some dry years when other creeks were inactive. Mining was on a small scale and mostly hand operations.

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

Comment (Geology): Age = Quaternary.

Comment (Exploration): Status = Inactive

Comment (Reference): Primary Reference = Collier and others, 1908

Comment (Geology): Geologic Description = Small-scale placer mining for gold took place as early as 1903 on Grouse Creek (Collier and others, 1908). This early mining was about 1 mile upstream from its confluence with Goldbottom Creek. The pay along this part of the creek was 1 to 3 feet thick and 40 feet wide. The gold was bright and rough, with nuggets as much as 2 pennyweights. Concentrates at this locality were mostly hematite pebbles. Near the mouth of Cold Creek (in the Nome C-1 quadrangle), an east tributary to Grouse Creek, gravels averaged about 5 feet deep, and the gold occured in the gravel and in crevices in marble bedrock (Moffit, 1913, p. 88). This mined area is near a contact between marble and metasedimentary schist.? Hummel (locality 28, 1962 [MF-248]) reported copper-bearing minerals in float in upper Grouse Creek (NM089) and copper in the form of tetrahedrite was reported in a quartz vein from the Grouse Creek drainage (Anderson, 1947, p. 11). The headwaters of Grouse Creek are in the area of an extensive gold and arsenic soil anomaly reported by BHP (written communication, 1995).? the headwaters of Grouse Creek cross massive marble with intercalated metasedimentary schist (Hummel, 1962 [MF 248]; Bundtzen and others, 1994). Lower Grouse Creek is in pelitic schist, local graphitic quartz schist, and a sill-like body of orthogneiss (C.C. Hawley, written communication, 1999).

References

Reference (Deposit): Anderson, Eskil, 1947, Mineral occurrences other than gold deposits in northwestern Alaska: Alaska Territorial Division of Mines Pamphlet 5-R, 48 p.

Reference (Deposit): Bundtzen, T.K., Reger, R.D., Laird, G.M., Pinney, D.S., Clautice, K.H., Liss, S.A., and Cruse, G.R., 1994, Progress report on the geology and mineral resources of the Nome mining district: Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, Public Data-File 94-39, 21 p., 2 sheets, scale 1:63,360.

Reference (Deposit): Hummel, C.L., 1962, Preliminary geologic map of the Nome D-1 quadrangle, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-248, 1 sheet, scale 1:63,360.

Reference (Deposit): Cobb, E.H., 1972, Metallic mineral resources map of the Nome quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-463, 2 sheets, scale 1:250,000.

Reference (Deposit): Cobb, E.H., 1978, Summary of references to mineral occurrences (other than mineral fuels and construction materials) in the Nome quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File report 78-93, 213 p.

Reference (Deposit): Collier, A. J., Hess, F.L., Smith, P.S., and Brooks, A.H., 1908, The gold placers of parts of Seward Peninsula, Alaska, including the Nome, Council, Kougarok, Port Clarence, and Goodhope precincts: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 328, 343 p.

Reference (Deposit): Moffit, F.H., 1913, Geology of the Nome and Grand Central quadrangles, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 533, 140 p.

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