Monroeville Beach

The Monroeville Beach 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: Monroeville Beach

Commodity

Primary: Gold
Secondary: Silver

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: Producer
Operation Type: Unknown
Years of Production:
Organization:
Significant:

Physiography

Not available

Mineral Deposit Model

Not available

Orebody

Not available

Structure

Not available

Alterations

Not available

Rocks

Name: Sand and Gravel
Role: Host
Age Type: Host Rock
Age Young: Pleistocene

Analytical Data

Not available

Materials

Ore: Arsenopyrite
Ore: Gold
Ore: Magnetite
Ore: Pyrite

Comments

Comment (Exploration): Status = Active?

Comment (Deposit): Model Name = Placer; marine abrasion platform deposit.

Comment (Reference): Primary Reference = Metcalfe and Tuck, 1942

Comment (Workings): Workings / Exploration = Mostly worked by drifting from shafts. The deposit was discovered about 1906.

Comment (Geology): Age = Quaternary.

Comment (Geology): Geologic Description = Monroeville Beach is an abrasion platform gold placer deposit at about 35 to 45 feet above sealevel that developed as Third Beach was being formed. The main deposit was traced for about a mile between Little and Holyoke Creeks (Moffit, 1913, p. 119). The placer continues as a low-grade deposit to a point just west of Dry Creek and possibly below Newton Gulch to Otter Creek (Metcalfe and Tuck, 1942).? the width of the deposit in its productive section near Center Creek was 300 to 500 feet. Much of the detritus associated with the gold was coarse grained, and ruby sand was lacking. The gold also was coarse-grained; it mainly occurred in about a 1-foot-thick zone above schist bedrock. About 2 to 3 feet of schist were mined with the pay gravel. Arsenopyrite, pyrite, and magnetite were abundant in concentrates. The placer deposit was covered by about 50 feet of frozen gravel and muck.? Tuck and Metcalfe (1942, p. 33 and 35) proposed that the Monroeville so called beach and other similar deposits was formed as an advancing sea eroded and redistributed a previously existing beach deposit. Unlike the strandline beaches, the abrasion deposits are not marked by an upper escarpment.

References

Reference (Deposit): Metcalfe, J.B., and Tuck, Ralph, 1942, Placer gold deposits of the Nome district, Alaska: Report for U.S. Smelting, Refining, and Mining Co., 175 p.

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): 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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