Bear Creek Mine, Fairhaven Mining District, Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska, USAi
| Regional Level Types | |
|---|---|
| Bear Creek Mine | Mine |
| Fairhaven Mining District | Mining District |
| Northwest Arctic Borough | Borough |
| Alaska | State |
| USA | Country |
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Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):
65° 33' 0'' North , 161° 4' 48'' West
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):
Type:
KΓΆppen climate type:
Nearest Settlements:
| Place | Population | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Buckland | 431 (2017) | 47.7km |
Mindat Locality ID:
196403
Long-form identifier:
mindat:1:2:196403:8
GUID (UUID V4):
d57bd7e4-ee30-482a-a05a-560c01173c90
Some of the names associated with early mining claims are: Douglass and Edwards, Douglass and Milligrock, Hoxie, Tendness and Barr, Porter, and Wright. Prospecting work was done near the airstrip in 1964 (Herreid, 1965).
Location: The Bear Creek placer mine is along about a mile of Bear Creek between Polar and Bob Creek. The coordinates are for the camp at the junction of Split Creek, on the boundary of sections 23 and 24, T. 2 N., R. 12 W., of the Kateel River Meridian. Cobb, 1972 (MF-389), locations 29 and 30. Also see Additional comments.
Geology: Bedrock in the mine area is predominately altered, Jurassic andesitic tuff and greenstone which are cut by mafic and felsic dikes. Quartz and calcite veins carry disseminated sulfides. Breccia zones in greenstones also carry disseminated sulfides and have a thin, oxidized cap which carries some gold. Abundant heavy, red, cherty rock in the placer concentrate occurs as crosscutting veins and irregular masses in greenstone. At the Bear Creek gold placer flaky gold and platinum occur on bedrock or in cracks in upper several inches of bedrock. During mining bedrock must be thoroughly cleaned since much of the gold is close to or in cracks in bedrock. The bedrock surface is very irregular. Concentrates contained gold, platinum, magnetite, hematite, pyrite, garnet and chrome spinel (Harrington, 1919). The gold was flaky and worth $19.20 per ounce in 1905. Analysis of platinum minerals from placer concentrate gave the following results: 72.82% Pt; 15.58% Ir, 8.17% Os, 2.29% Ru, 0.78% Rh, and 0.36% Pd (Moffit, 1905).
Workings: Small-scale placer mining has been done on Bear Creek since the early 1900s, continuing intermittently until at least the 1960's. Most of the mining has been above and below Split Creek (Herreid, 1965).
Age: Quaternary.
Commodities (Major) - Au; (Minor) - Ag, Ir, Os, Pb, Pd, Pt, Rh, Ru, Zn
Development Status: Yes; small
Deposit Model: Placer Au-PGE (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).
Select Mineral List Type
Standard Detailed Gallery Strunz Chemical ElementsCommodity List
This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality.Mineral List
3 valid minerals.
Gallery:
List of minerals arranged by Strunz 10th Edition classification
| Group 1 - Elements | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| β | Gold | 1.AA.05 | Au |
| β | Platinum | 1.AF.10 | Pt |
| Group 2 - Sulphides and Sulfosalts | |||
| β | Pyrite | 2.EB.05a | FeS2 |
List of minerals for each chemical element
| S | Sulfur | |
|---|---|---|
| S | β Pyrite | FeS2 |
| Fe | Iron | |
| Fe | β Pyrite | FeS2 |
| Pt | Platinum | |
| Pt | β Platinum | Pt |
| Au | Gold | |
| Au | β Gold | Au |
Other Databases
| Link to USGS - Alaska: | CA026 |
|---|
Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality
North America PlateTectonic Plate
- Koyukuk-Selawik DomainDomain
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References
