Gold Cliff Premier Prospect, Hyder Mining District, Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Gold Cliff Premier Prospect	Prospect
Hyder Mining District	Mining District
Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Claims originally staked in 1920 and restaked in 1925 (Buddington, 1929, p. 90).
Location: The Gold Cliff Premier prospect is at an elevation of about 450-800 feet adjoining the Salmon River at the northeast foot of Mineral Hill (Elliott and Koch, 1981, p. 16, loc. 60). The original claims lay along both sides of the river, and the property appears to straddle the boundary of sections 23 and 24. The location is probably accurate within a quarter of a mile.
Geology: The country rocks in the area of the prospect are pelitic metasedimentary and subordinate andesitic metavolcanic strata of the Jurassic or older Mesozoic Hazelton Group; the Texas Creek Granodiorite, which underlies and locally intrudes the Hazelton; the Eocene Boundary Granodiorite, which intrudes the Hazelton and Texas Creek rocks; and still-younger Tertiary lamprophyre dikes that cut all of these rocks (Smith 1973, 1977; Koch, 1996). The deposit (Buddington, 1929, p. 90) is in quartzite, tuff and slate cut by Triassic and Eocene porphyritic granodiorite dikes and consists of intensely fractured and pyritized quartzite, and of sheared tuffaceous rock mineralized with a 2.5 foot band of pyrite, quartz, and calcite. Samples of the mineralized band assayed as much as 1 oz Au and 3-4 oz Ag per ton. Elsewhere on the property, there is a narrow stringer of galena, and a 1-inch stringer of sphalerite, chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite, and pyrrhotite.
Workings: Prospect was explored by opencuts, probably in the 1920's. Early assays of samples of pyritized tuffaceous country rock showed as much as 1 oz Au and 3-4 oz Ag per ton.
Alteration: Intense pyritization of country rocks. Hostrock identified as quartzite may represent silicification of pelitic country rock.

Commodities (Major) - Ag, Au, Cu, Pb, Zn
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Polymetallic veins

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	BC060

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References