Silver King Prospect, Koyukuk Mining District, Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Silver King Prospect	Prospect
Koyukuk Mining District	Mining District
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: The Silver King prospect is along the north side of Michigan Creek about 2 miles east of Wild River and 8.75 miles southwest of Ipnek Mountain. It is at an elevation of about 1,100 feet, 0.3 mile west of the top of hill 1370, in the SW1/4 section 34, T. 29 N., R. 17 W., of the Fairbanks Meridian. The location is accurate.
Geology: Early descriptions of the Silver King prospect, beginning with Schrader in 1904, described this occurrence as argentiferous galena-bearing quartz veins in phyllite. Reed (1938) described several poorly exposed outcrops and float of galena-bearing quartz-vein material along about 2,000 feet of Michigan Creek. Reed described the rocks along Michigan Creek as a dark phyllite that grades to slate. Outcrops of the quartz veins, although at times inaccessible due to steep terrain, are about 5 to 6 feet thick, strike northeasterly, and dip steeply northwest. More recent descriptions of the occurrence note a more varied mineral assemblage. Nokleberg and others (1987) characterize the occurrence as a Kuroko massive sulfide deposit. They describe the mineralization as 3- to 4-inch thick zones of disseminated to massive chalcopyrite and argentiferous galena in felsic schist, with crosscutting pyrite veins. The country rocks are felsic schist, marble and phyllite of the Devonian and Mississippian, Ambler sequence. Grab samples of the mineralized material contain up to 8.2% arsenic, 8.3 grams of gold per ton, 3.9 grams of silver per ton, 0.14% copper, 0.03% zinc, and 0.014% lead. Kurtak and others (1999) collected and analyzed several float samples of mineralized material from near the Silver King prospect . The samples are limonite-stained vein quartz with galena, ankerite and siderite(?). Selected samples contain up to 4.35% lead, 2.63 ounces of silver per ton, 118 ppm antimony, and 9 ppb gold.
Workings: A 7x7 foot adit, 75 feet long, has been driven into the north wall of the canyon of Michigan Creek, probably to undercut a vein exposed in a surface trench about 150 feet north and 100 feet higher than the portal of the adit. This adit was caved in 1999 (Kurtak and others, 1999).
Alteration: Iron staining.

Commodities (Major) - Ag, Au, Cu, Pb, Zn; (Minor) - As
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Kuroko massive sulfide(?) (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 28a)

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	WI083

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References