Summit High Bench

Site Name

Primary: Summit High Bench

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Commodity

Primary: Gold

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Location

State: Alaska
District: Nome

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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

Not available

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Analytical Data

Not available

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Materials

Ore: Gold

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Comments

Comment (Exploration): Status = Probably inactive

Comment (Geology): Geologic Description = The Summit high-level bench placer mine worked a gravel deposit 600 to 800 feet wide at the surface. The paystreak was in a 50 to 80-foot-wide bedrock channel incised in schist. The mine was developed by shafts and drifts. On the Summit claim (at about 525 feet surface elevation), the gravel was 106 feet thick, and the elevation of the underlying surface of the schist was about 420 feet (Collier and others, 1908, p. 206). At the bottom of the Summit shaft, the local paystreak trended N 82 W. The pay gravel was about 6 to 7 feet thick and was composed of waterworn boulders and cobbles of schist, limestone (marble), and granite. In contrast to the deposit on Dexter divide (NM246), gold nuggets were well rounded and appeared to have been transported for some distance. The paystreak averaged about 7 to 8 dollars per yard (gold at 20.67 dollars per ounce), but some ground was appreciably richer yielding pans worth as much as 150 dollars. One nugget weighed about 7 ounces. Collier and his associates thought that gneiss and granite boulders 'must have come from a great distance and seem to indicate that the stream which deposited them was a long one' (Collier and others, 1908, p. 206).? the high-level gravels were originally interpreted to be alluvial deposits in stream channels of former drainage systems, but David Hopkins has proposed that they are ice-marginal systems (Hopkins and others, 1960; cited in Cobb, 1973 [B 1374, p. 83]; Nelson and Hopkins, 1972). Unlike the Dexter area, where exotic boulders appear to be mostly been in the shallow gravels, at Summit, granite, gneiss, schist, and marble occur throughout the pay gravel. The age and origin of the high-level gravels thus still seem in question. The richness of some of the placers suggests extensive reworking, proximity to lode sources, or both.? Bedrock is mostly graphitic schist, probably of early Paleozoic protolith age (Hummel, 1962 [MF 247]; Sainsbury, Hummel, and Hudson, 1972 [OFR 72-326]; Till and Dumoulin, 1994). Bundtzen and others (1994) map the bedrock at Summit as a porphyroclastic, micaceous graphitic schist.

Comment (Deposit): Model Name = Alluvial placer Au; buried high-level alluvial channel (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Comment (Production): Production Notes = Production from the high-level gravels of the general area totaled about 100,000 ounces by 1903 (Collier and others, 1908). About 5000 ounces of gold were probably produced from the high level deposits on the Summit and nearby claims.

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

Comment (Workings): Workings / Exploration = The workings at the Summit mine were underground. They included several shafts as deep as 106 feet and more than 600 to 700 feet of drifts; 300 feet of the pay streak was worked out by 1903 (Collier and others, 1908).

Comment (Geology): Age = Quaternary; possibly as old as late Tertiary.

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References

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): Moffit, F.H., 1913, Geology of the Nome and Grand Central quadrangles, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 533, 140 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): Cobb, E.H., 1973, Placer deposits of Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1374, 213 p.

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): 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): 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): Till, A.B., and Dumoulin, J.A, 1994, Geology of Seward Peninsula and St. Lawrence Island, in Plafker, G., and Berg, H.C., eds., The Geology of Alaska: Geological Society of America, The Geology of North America, DNAG, v. G-1, p. 141-152.

Reference (Deposit): Hummel, C.L., 1962, Preliminary geologic map of the Nome C-1 quadrangle, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-247, 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): Sainsbury, C.L., Hummel, C.L., and Hudson, Travis, 1972, Reconnaissance geologic map of the Nome quadrangle, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 72-326, 28 p., 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

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