Fairbanks Creek Mine, Fairbanks Mining District, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Fairbanks Creek Mine	Mine
Fairbanks Mining District	Mining District
Fairbanks North Star Borough	Borough
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: Cobb (1972, MF-413), loc. 91. A productive placer area of approximately 8 miles along Fairbanks Creek. The coordinates given are for the abandoned village of Meehan which lies in about the middle of the placered area along Fairbanks Creek.
Geology: Fairbanks Creek is one of the major placer creeks in the Fairbanks mining district. It has been mined almost continuous for a distance of 8 miles from the McCarty Mine (ARDF no. LG152) to the Fish Creek flats near the mouth of Clark Creek. Bedrock is mainly schist, from 15 to over 110 feet deep (Cobb, 1976). The gravels are schist, vein quartz and some gneiss. Minerals in concentrates include gold, wolframite, cassiterite, rutile, stibnite, and scheelite (Cobb, 1976; OFR 76-633). U.S.S.R. & M. Co. (F.E. Co.) operated Dredge no. 2 on Fairbanks Creek from 1950 through 1961 (R.M. Chapman, 1978, unpublished U.S.G.S. memorandum). Cook's Mining has been actively mining Fairbanks Creek throughout the 1980's and 1990's, and has mined to within approximately 200 yards of the McCarty mill at the head of the creek (J. Schaefer, field observation, 1999). Cook's Mining was not active in the creek when visited in 1999 (J. Schaefer, field observation, 1999).
Workings: Placer mining including dredging and drift mining methods from 1903 to present (Cobb, 1976; OFR 76-633; Swainbank and others, 1997).U.S.S.R. & M. Co. (F.E. Co.) operated Dredge no. 2 on Fairbanks Creek from 1950 through 1961 (R.M. Chapman, 1978, unpublished U.S.G.S. memorandum). Cook's Mining has been actively mining Fairbanks Creek throughout the 1980's and 1990's, however, they were not active in the creek when visited in 1999 (J. Schaefer, field observation, 1999).
Production: Placer mining from 1903 to present. Dredging began in 1911, but drift and other mining also continued. Production, including that from tributaries, from 1903 through 1920 was about 380,115 fine ounces of gold (Cobb, 1976; OFR 76-633, p. 63). In the 1980's and 1990's, Cook's Mining produced an unreported amount from Fairbanks Creek.

Commodities (Major) - Au; (Minor) - Ag, Sb, Sn, W
Development Status: Yes; medium
Deposit Model: Placer gold deposit (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	LG198

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References