Lituya Bay Gold Mining Co. Mine, Yakutat District, Skagway-Hoonah-Angoon Borough, Alaska, USA

The beach placers are in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Claims could still exist, but probably the site is inactive. The recovery of the very fine-grained gold of the Lituya area by flotation and non-traditional gravity methods has been studied by Cook (1969). The beach system is part of a very extensive system of heavy-mineral beaches along the west coast of North America (Clifton and Luepke, 1987).
Location: The beach placer extends for about 17 miles from Cape Fairweather southeasterly to La Chausee Spit at the north side of the mouth of Lituya Bay. Coordinates are the approximate mid-point of the placer deposit. The location is essentially that of figure C5 of Kimball and others (1978) which includes their blocks 2, 3, and 4 and sample lines 3-12. The northwest part of the placer deposit is in the Mt. Fairweather D-6 quadrangle.
Geology: The beach, and related older upland placer deposits that were produced at higher sea stands, occur as layers and lenses of heavy minerals concentrated as lighter materials are washed away by alluvial and littoral processes. On the modern beach valuable transient deposits are formed, especially during heavy spring storms. The economically valuable minerals occur in ruby and black sands that, respectively, are rich in garnet and in magnetite or ilmenite. The heavy sands also contain epidote, olivine, pyroxene, sphene and staurolite as well as remnant amounts of quartz, feldspar, and light rock fragments. Some of the richest deposits exploited in the early years of the Twentieth century were near Eagle and Echo Creeks. Wright and Wright (1907, p. 64-65) proposed that these creeks brought down weakly metalliferous sediments that were further concentrated by surf action into transient valuable heavy sand deposits. Other deposits probably form by reworking of glacial outwash and gravels brought down from the Fairweather Range and adjacent hard bed hills. Some platinum has been reported (Mertie, 1918, p. 23). PGEs and ilmenite and magnetite have their ultimate source in deposits associated with the layerered gabbro intrusions of the Fairweather Range.
Workings: The area was first mined by Americans in about 1886 (Brooks, 1918, p. 41). About $15,000 worth of gold was mined in 1891 (Wright and Wright, 1907, p. 64-65). In 1901, Lituya Bay Gold Mining Company tried to establish large-scale placer operations near the mouths of Eagle and Echo Creeks, but were unsuccessful because of the limited size of the pay streaks and difficulties in moving equipment and hydraulic systems (Wright and Wright, 1907, p. 64-65). Nonetheless, the area was mined on a small scale amost continuously from 1891 until World War II. In addition to the reports cited above, yearly resource reports by the U.S. Geological Survey indicate nearly continuous small scale mining. These reports include Brooks (1919, 1922, 1923, and 1925), Brooks and Martin (1921), Brooks and Capps (1924), Martin (1920) and Mertie (1933). P. S. Smith reported activity in the reports issued in 1934, 1936, 1937, 1938, two reports in 1939, 1941 and 1942. There was a lesser amount of gold activity after World War II, but claims were probably maintained. Summary reports include those by Cobb in 1972 (MF-436 and OFR-508), Berg and Cobb in 1967, and Cobb in 1973. More recent work has concentrated on valuable industrial minerals, notably ilmenite. Extensive sampling programs for the U.S. Bureau of Mines were undertaken by Thomas and Berryhill (1962), Kimball and others (1978, figure C5 and C11 to C18, tables C8 to C12), and Foley and others, (1995, fig. 17). Rossman (1957) and MacKevett and others (1971) studied the area for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Age: Holocene.
Production: Production in 1891 $15,000 was reported by Wright and Wright (1907), who also noted 'In later years even higher returns are said to have been maintained, but no authentic statements could be obtained..' Mertie (1933) proposed that about 4000 ounces of gold had been produced between 1890 and 1917.
Reserves: Kimball and others (1978, table C23) calculated about 2,732,000 cubic yards of material from sample lines 3-12 and blocks 2-3. The largest resource, however, 1,809,000 cubic yards, contains less than 1 percent of ilmenite and only about .0003 ounce/cubic yard in gold. Small blocks totaling about 43,000 cubic yards near Eagle and Echo Creeks contain about 2.5 percent ilmenite and average as much as 0.0008 ounce per cubic yard gold. Foley and others (1995) reported 0.564 ppm gold and 4.09 percent ilmenite in a spiral concentrate split of sample 301.

Commodities (Major) - Au, Fe, Ti; (Minor) - PGE
Development Status: Yes
Deposit Model: Beach placer and related upland buried placers; possibly offshore deposits.

References:
Berg, H.C., and Cobb, E.H., 1967, Metalliferous lode deposits of Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1246, 254 p. Brooks, A.H., 1918, Mineral resources of Alaska, 1916: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 662, 469 p. Brooks, A.H., 1919, Alaska's mineral supplies: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 666-P, p 89-102. Brooks, A.H., 1922, The Alaska mining industry in 1920: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 722-A, p. 1-74. Brooks, A.H., 1923, The Alaska mining industry in 1921: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 739-A, p. 1-50. Brooks, A.H., 1925, Alaska's mineral resources and production, 1923: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 773-A, p. 3-52. Brooks, A.H., and Capps, S.R., 1924, The Alaska mining industry in 1922: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 755-A, p. 1-56. Brooks, A.H., and Martin, G. C., 1921, The Alaska mining industry in 1919: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 714-A, p. 59-95. Clifton, H.E., and Luepke, G., 1987, Heavy-mineral placer deposits of the continental margin of Alaska and the Pacific Coast States, Chapter 30 in Scholl, D.W., Grantz, Arthur, and Vedder, J.G., eds., Geology and resource potential of the continental margin of western North America and adjacent ocean basins, Beaufort Sea to Baja California: Circum-Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources, Earth Science Series, v. 6, p. 691-738. Cobb, E.H., 1972, Placer deposits of Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 508, 1 v. Cobb, E.H., 1972, Metallic mineral resources map of the Mount Fairweather quadrangle, AK: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Study Map MF-436, 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000. Cobb, E. H., 1973, Placer deposits of Alaska: U. S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1374, 213 p. Cook, D.J., 1969, Lituya Bay, in Heavy minerals in Alaskan beach sand deposits: University of Alaska, Mineral Industry Research Laboratory Report 20, p. 47-57. Foley, J.Y., La Berge, R.D., Grosz, A.E., Oliver, F.S., and Hirt, W.C., 1995, Onshore titanium and related heavy-mineral investigations in the eastern Gulf of Alaska region, southern Alaska: U.S. Bureau of Mines Open-File Report 10-95, 125 p. Kimball, A.L., Still, J.C., and Rataj, J.L., 1978, Mineral resources, in Brew, D. A., and others, Mineral resources of the Glacier Bay National Monument wilderness study area, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 78-494, p. C1-C375. MacKevett, E.M., Jr., Brew, D.A., Hawley, C.C., Huff, L.C., and Smith, J.G., 1971, Mineral resources of Glacier Bay National Monument, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 632, 90 p., 12 plates, scale 1:250,000. Martin, G.C., 1920, The Alaska mining industry in 1918: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 712-A, p. 1-52. Mertie, J.B., Jr., 1933, Notes on the geography and geology of Lituya Bay: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 836-B, p. 117-135. Rossman, Darwin, 1957, Ilmenite-bearing beach sands near Lituya Bay, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 149, 10 p. Rossman, Darwin, 1963, Geology and petrology of two stocks of layered gabbro in the Fairweather Range, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1121-F, p. F1-F50. Smith, P.S., 1934, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1932: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 857-A, p. 1-91. Smith, P.S., 1934, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1933: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 864-A, p. 1-94. Smith, P.S., 1936, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1934: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 868-A, p. 1-91. Smith, P.S., 1937, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1935: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 880-A, p. 1-95. Smith, P.S., 1938, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1936: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 897-A, p. 1-107. Smith, P.S., 1939, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1937: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 910-A, p. 1-113. Smith, P.S., 1939, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1938: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 917-A, p. 1-113. Smith, P.S., 1941, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1939: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 926-A, p. 1-106. Smith, P.S., 1942, Mineral industry of Alaska in 1940: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 933-A, p. 1-102. Thomas, B.I., and Berryhill, R. V., 1962, Reconnaissance studies of Alaskan beach sands, eastern Gulf of Alaska: U.S. Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations 5986, 40 p. Wright, F.E., and Wright, C.W., 1907, Economic developments in southeastern Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 314-C, p. 47-68.