Gold Prospect, Petersburg Mining District, Hoonah-Angoon Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Gold Prospect	Prospect
Petersburg Mining District	Mining District
Hoonah-Angoon Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

The prospect is in the Chuck River Wilderness Area which is closed to prospecting and mining.
Location: The Gold prospect is about 0.3 mile south of hill 4330 which is locally called 'Spruce Mountain'. The shaft at the prospect is about 0.5 mile east-northeast of the center of section 31, T. 49 S., R. 76 E.
Geology: The Gold prospect is one of several prospects and mineral occurrences (SD046-049) in what is often referred to as the Third Zone of Spencer (1906; Kimble and others,1984). These are generally gold-quartz veins and veinlets in muscovite schist of Cretaceous age (Brew and Grybeck, 1984). The Gold prospect was known as early as 1915 and the claims on it were restaked in the 1930's and early 1940's (Kimble and others, 1984). The workings consist of a 20-foot shaft and a 156-foot trench. Of the samples collected by Kimble and others, the most notable was a 3.8-foot channel sample across a quartz vein that contained 2 parts per million (ppm) silver, 8 ppm gold, and 390 ppm lead. All of the samples contained 0.5 to 2 ppm silver. Nearby, on the Gold Shaft claim, an 8-foot thick quartz veins that strikes N24W and dips 80SW is exposed in the talus. Samples across the vein contained only traces of gold and silver. However, a select sample from a pod of galena about 0.1 foot long in the quartz vein contained 30 ppm silver, 0.25 ppm gold, and 8,000 ppm lead. The deposits at the nearby Marty prospect (SD041) and the Sumdum Chief Mine (SD028) have been dated at about 55 million years (Goldfarb and others, 1997). This prospect is geologically similar and probably of the same age. Goldfarb and others (1997) also propose that most gold-quartz vein deposits along the Juneau Gold Belt such as this one were formed from fluids generated by Cretaceous metamorphism and then forced to the site of deposition by the emplacement of the Coast Range Batholith.
Workings: The Gold prospect was known as early as 1915 and the claims on it were restaked in the 1930's and early 1940's (Kimble and others, 1984). The workings consist of a 20-foot shaft and a 156-foot trench. Sampled by government geologists in the early 1980's (Kimble and others, 1984).
Age: The deposits at the nearby Marty prospect (SD041) and the Sumdum Chief Mine (SD028) have been dated at about 55 million years (Goldfarb and others, 1997). This prospect is geologically similar and probably of the same age.

Commodities (Major) - Ag, Au, Pb
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Low-sulfide gold-quartz vein (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 36a).

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	SD048

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References