Fourth Beach

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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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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