Unnamed Occurrence (ARDF - MF017; between Fairweather and Sea Otter Glaciers), Yakutat District, Yakutat Borough, Alaska, USA
Latitude: 58°52'58"N
Longitude: 137°38'56"W
The site is in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Further search for the source of the metalliferous moraine would need mountaineering support.
Location: Sulfide and heavy oxide boulders occur in the moraine about 4.5-7 miles west-southwest of the top of Mt. Fairweather on an east-heading glacier that is between Fairweather and Sea Otter Glaciers. The coordinates given above are for the approximate location of Bureau of Mines sample 7S008 (Kimball and others, 1978) collected at an elevation of about 3500 feet. The Bureau estimated the collection elevation at about 3700 feet which would be about 0.4 mile to the east of the coordinates assumed here. Sample 7S009 was collected in moraine about 0.4 mile south, slightly east, of the 7S008 location. The exact locations of the samples are not believed to be critical.
Geology: This occurrence consists of boulders on a moraine about 1 mile southwest of the contact of the Mt. Fairweather layered mafic intrusion. The boulders consist of mafic intrusive rocks which contain disseminated sulfides, including chalcopyrite and nickel-bearing minerals. The boulders were derived from the intrusion. An area of bedrock about 1.5 miles northeast of the boulder field is conspicuously copper-stained and may be at or near the source of the boulders. Samples collected from the moraine field by Plafker and MacKevett (1970) and by Kimball and others (1978)contained as much as 0. 5 percent copper, 0.2 percent nickel, a trace of silver, also as much as 0.005 ounce/ton platinum and 0.008 ounce/ton palladium. A sample collected below the copper-stained bedrock area contained 0.2 percent vanadium.
Workings: Sampling by Plafker and MacKevett (1970) was followed up by the Bureau of Mines (Kimball and others, 1978). Samples collected by the Bureau (7S008 and 009) contain 0.002-0.005 ounce/ton platinum, 0.008-0.01 ounce/ton palladium, as much as 1.5 ppm Ag, about 0. 5 percent copper and 0.2 percent nickel, and 150 ppm cobalt. A sample of gabbro within the intrusive and below the copper-stained area contained 0.2 percent vanadium.
Age: Tertiary.
Commodities (Major) - Cu, Ni; (Minor) - Ag, Co, Cr, PGE, V
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Metalliferous glacial moraine. The metalliferous boulders are derived from prim
References
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. Plafker, George, and MacKevett, E.M., Jr., 1970, Mafic and ultramafic rocks from a layered pluton at Mount Fairweather, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 700-B, p. B21-B26.
Mineral List
3 entries listed. 3 valid minerals.
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