Canyon Creek

Site Name

Primary: Canyon Creek

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Commodity

Primary: Gold

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Location

State: Alaska
District: Aniak

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Land Status

Not available

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Holdings

Not available

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Workings

Not available

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Ownership

Not available

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Production

Not available

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Deposit

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

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Physiography

Not available

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Mineral Deposit Model

Model Name: Placer Au-PGE

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Orebody

Not available

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Structure

Not available

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Alterations

Not available

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Rocks

Name: Gravel
Role: Host
Age Type: Host Rock
Age Young: Holocene

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Analytical Data

Not available

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Materials

Ore: Gold

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Comments

Comment (Workings): Workings / Exploration = The creek has been mined by open-cut methods over about 2.5 miles of its length. Much of the mining before WW II was by crude hand methods; a dozer was not added to the the operations until 1947. The amount of mining since WW II has not been reported.

Comment (Geology): Geologic Description = Placer gold was discovered on Canyon Creek in 1913 and mining occurred almost every year up to and possibly after WW II (Hoare and Cobb, 1977). The creek has not been glaciated. Gravels in the narrow flood plain, up to 300 feet wide, were 14 feet thick at the mouth and thinned upstream to thicknesses of 1 to 4 feet (Maddren, 1915). About 2.5 miles of the creek were mined, mostly by crude hand methods that, before WWII, included ripping up and washing individual bedrock slabs. The recovered gold was coarse and included flat, pumpkin-seed-size nuggets. The grade ran from 0.06 to 0.12 ounce of gold per square foot of bedrock. Panning of the tailings after WW II recovered much fine gold (Hoare and Cobb, 1977, p. 6). An alluvial bench, with gravels up to 10 feet thick, is present along the east side of the creek. Gold is reported to be present throughout the bench gravels (Hoare and Cobb, 1977). Bedrock in the drainage is mostly clastic sedimentary rocks of the mid-Cretaceous Kuskokwim Group. These rocks are intruded and thermally metamorphosed by an Upper Cretaceous felsic stock in the headwaters of the creek; dikes and sills are present locally elsewhere (Hoare and Cobb, 1977; Box and others, 1993).

Comment (Geology): Age = Quaternary.

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

Comment (Reference): Primary Reference = Hoare and Cobb, 1977

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References

Reference (Deposit): Cobb, E.H., 1972, Metallic mineral resources map of the Bethel quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-455, 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

Reference (Deposit): Box, S.E, Moll-Stalcup, E.J., Frost, T.P., and Murphy, J.M., 1993, Preliminary geologic map of the Bethel and southern Russian Mission quadrangles, southwestern Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2226-A, 20 p., scale 1:250,000.

Reference (Deposit): Maddren, A.G., 1915, Gold placers of the lower Kuskokwim with a note on copper in the Russian Mountains: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 622-H, p. 292-360.

Reference (Deposit): Hoare, J.M., and Cobb, E.H., 1977, Mineral occurrences (other than mineral fuels and construction materials) in the Bethel, Goodnews, and Russian Mission quadrangles, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 77-156, 98 p.

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