Gold Belt North; Wixon; Peterson-Arwick-Wixon Group Prospects, Ketchikan District, Wrangell-Petersburg Borough, Alaska, USA

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Location: This prospect, which has been known under several names, is west of the center of Bear Lake and extends from an elevation of about 1,300 to 1,900 feet. The center of the workings is about 0.4 mile southwest of the center of section 29, T. 71 S., R. 87 E. The location is accurate.
Geology: Roehm (1936 [PE 119-1]) reported that this prospect was discovered in 1931 and was covered by a group of 8 lode claims and 1 placer claim west of Bear Lake. The deposit is in greenschist and slate and consists of three, parallel zones of quartz stringers, at elevations of 1280, 1460, and 1900 feet. The zones are 30 to 200 feet thick; the stringers are an inch to a foot thick. There are no assay data, but free gold was reported to have been panned from the veins and a small mill was built near Bear Lake. Munoz (1977) indicates that the property was examined by Cominco Exploration and restaked as the Gold Belt Group in 1975(?), but apparently there has been little work since. The mill was in ruins in 1977. Several samples were collected by Bittenbender and others (1993). Their representative samples from 13 quartz veinlets averaged 267 parts per billion (ppb) gold and 0.9 part per million (ppm) silver. A sample from a quartz vein with up to 5 percent galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, and pyrite contained 4,698 ppb gold, 2.4 ppm silver, and 719 ppm lead. The rocks in the area consist of metamorphosed andesite, basalt, agglomerate, and tuff, and minor flysch, shale, and phyllite. Eberlein and others (1983) and Brew (1996) consider them to be Paleozoic or Mesozoic in age; Gehrels and Berg (1992) tentatively mapped them as Jurassic or Cretaceous.
Workings: Claims were staked in 1931 and at least some surface exploration is implied. A small mill was built on Bear Lake. The property was restaked in 1975(?) but apparently there has been little work since.
Age: The quartz veins cut country rocks that may be as young as Cretaceous or as old as Paleozoic.
Production: None is recorded but it is possible that the mill produced a small amount of gold.
Reserves: None.

Commodities (Major) - Ag, Au; (Minor) - Cu, Pb, Zn
Development Status: Undetermined.
Deposit Model: Low-sulfide gold-quartz vein (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 36a).

References

Bittenbender, P.E., Maas, K., Still, J.C., and Redman, E.C., 1993, Mineral investigations in the Ketchikan mining district, Alaska, 1992--Ketchikan to Hyder areas: U.S. Bureau of Mines Open-File Report 11-93, 86 p. Brew, D.A., 1996, Geologic map of the Craig, Dixon Entrance, and parts of the Ketchikan and Prince Rupert quadrangles, southeastern Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2319, 53 p., 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000. Eberlein, G.D., Churkin, Michael, Jr., Carter, Claire, Berg, H.C., and Ovenshine, A. T., 1983, Geology of the Craig quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 83-91, 52 p. Gehrels, G.E., and Berg, H.C., 1992, Geologic map of southeastern Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-1867, 1 sheet, scale 1:600,000, 24 p. Maas, K.M., Bittenbender, P E., and Still, J.C., 1995, Mineral investigations in the Ketchikan mining district, southeastern Alaska: U.S. Bureau of Mines Open-File Report 11-95, 606 p. Munoz, Juan, 1977, Gold Belt group, Helm Bay, Ketchikan, Alaska: 9 p. plus maps (Unpublished report held as file 6346 in the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming) Roehm, J.C., 1936, Preliminary report on Peterson-Wixon- Arwick Group, Bear Lake, Cleveland Peninsula: Alaska Territorial Department of Mines Property Examination 119-1, 2 p.

Mineral List

Chalcopyrite Galena

Gold Pyrite

Quartz Sphalerite

6 entries listed. 6 valid minerals.