The Fourth 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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Fourth Beach MRDS details
Site Name
Primary: Fourth Beach
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: Occurrence
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
Name: Sand and Gravel
Role: Host
Age Type: Host Rock
Age Young: Pleistocene
Analytical Data
Not available
Materials
Ore: Gold
Gangue: Garnet
Comments
Comment (Reference): Primary Reference = Nelson and Hopkins, 1972
Comment (Geology): Age = Pleistocene.
Comment (Exploration): Status = Inactive
Comment (Deposit): Other Comments = Considered too low grade to be of economic interest.
Comment (Workings): Workings / Exploration = There is no substantial production from Fourth Beach. Gold originally concentrated on this beach could have been eroded and reconcentrated in alluvial deposits below the beach.
Comment (Deposit): Model Name = Placer Au; buried, strandline beach deposit (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).
Comment (Geology): Geologic Description = Fourth Beach represents the farthest advance of the sea in Quaternary time, and it has been recognized only at the base of Anvil Mountain. It formed as a true strandline beach by waves impinging upon bedrock. Unlike Third Beach, which terminates landward on a prominent scarp marked by long-continued erosion at that sea level, Fourth Beach is an inconspicuous strandline that evidently formed during a relatively short seastand. It is not generally rich enough to mine. Probably some of the gold that was concentrated at Fourth Beach sea level was eroded seaward before the beach was buried by mass-wasting deposits. Hopkins and others (1960, p. 47-48) noted that the sediments of Fourth Beach are overlain by drift of the Nome River glaciation and that the seaward edge of the deposits is truncated at the Third Beach escarpment. They postulated that Fourth Beach may have formed during some part of Submarine Beach time or during an otherwise unidentified interglacial interval. Nelson and Hopkins (1972) diagrammatically show Fourth Beach at the base of Anvil Mountain (also see Cobb, 1973 [B 1374, figure 29]).
References
Reference (Deposit): Nelson, C.H., and Hopkins, D.M., 1972, Sedimentary processes and distribution of particulate gold in the northern Bering Sea: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 689, 27 p., 1 plate.
Reference (Deposit): Cobb, E.H., 1973, Placer deposits of Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1374, 213 p.
Reference (Deposit): Hopkins, D.M., MacNeil, F.S. and Leopold, E.B., 1960, The coastal plain at Nome, Alaska, A late Cenozoic type section for the Bering Sea region, in Chronology and climatology of the Quaternary: International Geological Congress, 21st, Copenhagen , Proceedings, Part 4, p. 46-57.
Reference (Deposit): Tagg, A.R., and Greene, H.G., 1973, High resolution seismic survey of an offshore area near Nome, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 795-A, p. A1-A23.
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