Grouse Creek Mine, Nome Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Grouse Creek Mine	Mine
Nome Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: Grouse Creek is a small, south-flowing stream on the southeast side of Mount Distin. It is a north tributary to Goldbottom Creek; its confluence with Goldbottom Creek is in the Nome C-1 quadrangle. The creek is auriferous about 1 mile above its mouth (Collier and others, 1908, p. 197-198) and upstream near its confluence with Cold Creek, which is on the Nome C-1 quadrangle (NM100). This is locality 86 of Cobb (1972 [MF-463], 1978 [OFR 78-93]).
Geology: Small-scale placer mining for gold took place as early as 1903 on Grouse Creek (Collier and others, 1908). This early mining was about 1 mile upstream from its confluence with Goldbottom Creek. The pay along this part of the creek was 1 to 3 feet thick and 40 feet wide. The gold was bright and rough, with nuggets as much as 2 pennyweights. Concentrates at this locality were mostly hematite pebbles. Near the mouth of Cold Creek (in the Nome C-1 quadrangle), an east tributary to Grouse Creek, gravels averaged about 5 feet deep, and the gold occured in the gravel and in crevices in marble bedrock (Moffit, 1913, p. 88). This mined area is near a contact between marble and metasedimentary schist. Hummel (locality 28, 1962 [MF-248]) reported copper-bearing minerals in float in upper Grouse Creek (NM089) and copper in the form of tetrahedrite was reported in a quartz vein from the Grouse Creek drainage (Anderson, 1947, p. 11). The headwaters of Grouse Creek are in the area of an extensive gold and arsenic soil anomaly reported by BHP (written communication, 1995). The headwaters of Grouse Creek cross massive marble with intercalated metasedimentary schist (Hummel, 1962 [MF 248]; Bundtzen and others, 1994). Lower Grouse Creek is in pelitic schist, local graphitic quartz schist, and a sill-like body of orthogneiss (C.C. Hawley, written communication, 1999).
Workings: Grouse Creek was prospected and mined at least as early as 1903. It carried a considerable flow of water and was active during some dry years when other creeks were inactive. Mining was on a small scale and mostly hand operations.
Age: Quaternary.

Commodities (Major) - Au
Development Status: Yes; small
Deposit Model: Placer Au (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	NM099

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References