Eldorado Creek Mine, Kantishna Mining District, Denali Borough, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Eldorado Creek Mine	Mine
Kantishna Mining District	Mining District
Denali Borough	Borough
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Eldorado Creek is in Denali National Park and Preserve.
Location: Eldorado Creek, a northeast-flowing tributary of Moose Creek, (Cobb, 1980 [OFR 80-363]) flows north and northeast on the south flank of the Kantishna Hills. It is auriferous at least from the mouth of Slate Creek (MM152) to the confluence of Eldorado and Moose creeks. For this record, the mine site is about at the midpoint of unpatented mining claims on Eldorado Creek (Hawley and Associates, 1978). Eldorado Creek is number 43 of Cobb (1972 [MF 366]) and 49 of MacKevett and Holloway (1977).
Geology: Eldorado Creek contains a thin layer of gravel either on schist bedrock, or, near Moose Creek, on silt false bedrock. The gravel is thawed and is about 4 feet thick (Capps, 1919; Levell, 1984 [v. 2]). The gold in the creek is bright, well worn and finer than that in Friday (MM113) and Eureka (MM122) creeks; Eureka Creek enters Moose Creek opposite the mouth of Eldorado Creek. The fineness of gold on Eldorado Creek reported by Capps (1919) was about 780. Eldorado Creek contains a possible resource of about 300,000 cubic yards of auriferous gravel, probably grading an average of less than 0.02 ounce of gold per cubic yard.
Workings: Eldorado Creek was first worked before 1916; early mining was mostly subeconomic and the creek was abandoned for many years. The lower part of Eldorado Creek just above Moose Creek was worked in 1975, possibly in alluvial fan material on silt false bedrock (Bundtzen, Smith, and Tosdal, 1976, p. 13-14). Some of this material was rich. In 1983, the creek was explored by reconnaissance sluicing methods; values ranged from less than 0.005 ounce of gold per cubic yard to 0.0706 ounce of gold per cubic yard. Most samples graded less than 0.02 ounce of gold per cubic yard.
Age: Holocene.
Production: Total production is probably on the order of 1000 ounces of gold.
Reserves: Auriferous gravel about 4 feet thick underlies about 46 acres of Eldorado Creek. The calculated resource contains about 300,000 cubic yards of gravel (Levell, 1984 [v. 2]). The possible gold resource remaining in the creek ranges from about 2,000 to 20,000 ounces, depending on the actual grade of the deposit. Assuming an average grade of about 0.02 ounce of gold per cubic yard, there are about 6000 ounces of gold remaining in the creek.

Commodities (Major) - Au; (Minor) - Sb
Development Status: Yes; small
Deposit Model: Au-PGE placer deposit (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	MM028

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References