Glacier Creek (includes Bonanza and Bergstrom Gulches)

Site Name

Primary: Glacier Creek (includes Bonanza and Bergstrom Gulches)

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Commodity

Primary: Gold
Secondary: Silver
Secondary: Tungsten
Secondary: Tin

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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: Cassiterite
Ore: Gold
Ore: Scheelite
Gangue: Garnet

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Comments

Comment (Deposit): Model Name = Alluvial placer Au (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Comment (Workings): Workings / Exploration = Glacier Creek was an early discovery in the Nome district. Claims were staked covering part of Glacier Creek and lower Snow Gulch on September 20 and November 28, 1898, by the Pioneer Mining Company owned by Lindeberg, Lindblom, and Brynteson. Claims on the lower part of Glacier Creek were located as early as October 19 and November 2 and 28 in 1898. These claims, known as No. 1, 2, and 3 Below Placer and the Joe Bench claim were patented to the Miocene Ditch Company in 1912. The Miocene Ditch Company was closely related to Pioneer Mining Company. One unpatented claim, the Utica, separated the upper (Snow Gulch) and lower Glacier Creek claims.

Comment (Production): Production Notes = Production from as early as 1900 through 1922; possibly some activity in the 1930s. Production cannot be subdivided, but more than 750,000 dollars worth of gold (35,000 ounces) was recovered in 1900.

Comment (Geology): Age = Quaternary.

Comment (Exploration): Status = Inactive

Comment (Geology): Geologic Description = Significant placer mining took place on Glacier Creek starting in 1900 when more than 36,000 ounces of gold were produced (Brooks and others, 1901). Mining continued to at least 1922 and included dredge operations from 1916 to 1922 (Cobb, 1978 [OFR 78-93]). About 1.4 miles of the creek have been placer mined, in places more than once, starting 1 mile above the mouth and extending upstream to beyond Snow Gulch (NM222). The lower part of the creek, in the Snake River valley, contained fine gold throughout 10 to 15 feet of gravel and in 2 to 3 feet of creviced bedrock in a 300-foot-wide pay streak (Collier and others, 1908). Near the mouth of Snow Gulch (NM222), the 6 feet of gravel over schist bedrock was gold-bearing, although richest in the lower 2 feet (Brooks and others, 1901). About one mile below the mouth of Snow Gulch, the placer was about 20 feet thick on chloritic schist bedrock and the paystreak about 300 feet wide. About the upper 3 feet of the schist was also gold-bearing. The gold was reported as fine, bright, and well-rounded (Collier and others, 1908, p. 193). The heavy mineral concentrate contained garnet, scheelite, and cassiterite (Brooks and others, 1901; Anderson, 1947). Some scheelite was recovered by dredge operations during WW I and from a residual placer (NM221) on the north side of the creek (Mertie, 1918 [B 662-!, p. 425-449]). Gold-bearing quartz veins and stringers in sulfidized schist were also identified along the north side of the creek valley, where rich bench placer deposits containing coarse gold were mined (NM219). An occurrence of mineralized bedrock near the mouth of Snow Gulch (NM221) reportedly is concordant to schistosity. The occurrence consists of sulfide-bearing quartz veins separated by sulfide-rich schist. The deposit was discovered in 1898. Mining began soon afterward. Mining in 1900 in Glacier Creek and adjacent parts of Snow Gulch produced 750,000 dollars or more than 35,000 ounces of gold (Brooks and others, 1901, p. 69). The existence of scheelite in the concentrates was reported at this time. The recovered gold had a fineness of about 900 (Purington, 1905, p. 209). Mining appears to have progressed through shovel-in operations to hydraulic elevators, other hydraulic operations, and then to dredging. Brooks (1904) reported the installation of hydraulic elevators in 1903. A dredge was in operation at least by 1916 (Mertie, 1918, p. 452, 455); dredge operations were reported up to at least 1922 (Brooks and Capps, 1924). Some of the ground was rich. Collier and others (1908, p. 193) thought ground mined prior to 1903 contained more than 5.00 dollars per cubic yard (about 1/4 ounce of gold per cubic yard). In 1916, a period of high tungsten prices during World War I, scheelite was saved in dredge concentrates from this mine as well as at the Lynx (NM221) lode claim (Mertie, 1918, p. 457). Coats (1944) considered Glacier Creek to be potentially important as a scheelite resource. Anderson (1947) reported scheelite and cassiterite in the placer concentrates and stibnite in nearby lodes. The sources of placer gold in Glacier Creek appear to include nearby older bench placer deposits to the north of Glacier Creek, Snow Gulch, upper Glacier Creek and in lower Glacier Creek, Bonanza Gulch and Bergstrom Gulch. Bedrock along Glacier Creek is locally graphitic chloritic schist and some marble (Collier and others, 1908, p. 193). The nearest bedrock mapped by Bundzten and others (1994) is chlorite-rich metaturbide schist and marble. The bedrock is probably is 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).

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

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References

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): 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): 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): 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): Brooks, A.H. and Capps, S.R., 1924, Mineral industry in Alaska, 1922: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 755, p. 1-56.

Reference (Deposit): Anderson, Eskil, 1947, Mineral occurrences other than gold deposits in northwestern Alaska: Alaska Territorial Division of Mines Pamphlet 5-R, 48 p.

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.

Reference (Deposit): Brooks, A.H., 1904, Placer mining in Alaska in 1903: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 225, p. 43-59.

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): Purington, C.W., 1905, Methods and costs of gravel and placer mining in Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 263, 273 p.

Reference (Deposit): Coats, R.R., 1944, Lode scheelite occurrences of the Nome area: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 17, 6 p.

Reference (Deposit): Brooks, A.H., Richardson, G. B., and Collier, A. J., 1901, Reconnaissance in the Cape Nome and Norton Bay regions, Alaska, in 1900: U.S. Geological Survey Special Publication, p. 1-180.

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.

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