Iron Creek Mine, Kougarok Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Iron Creek Mine	Mine
Kougarok Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: Iron Creek is a major south tributary to the upper Pilgrim River. The mouth of Iron Creek is about 11 miles downstream from the origin of the Pilgrim River on Salmon Lake. The 5.5-mile-long Iron Creek starts at the confluence of Canyon (SO115) and Dome (SO113) Creeks; the coordinates are at about the center of the mined length of the creek. Iron Creek is included in locality 33 of Cobb (1972, MF 445; 1978, OF 78-181).
Geology: Iron Creek has been placer mined over about 90 percent of its 5.5 mile length. Most of this mining was by small-scale methods from discovery in 1899 or 1900 to 1914. A dredge operated in 1939 and 1940 but this was probably upstream on Dome Creek (Sainsbury and others, 1972, OFR 512). Much of the placer on Iron Creek was of low tenor. The gold was bright and in both the active drainage and benches, particularly along the east side near Eagle (Easy) Creek (SO126). Mining along the lower part of the creek tried unsuccessfully to use sluices in a tunnel driven between Iron Creek and the Pilgrim River (Henshaw, 1910). The coarse gold and cinnabar recovered from the Iron Creek area appears to be from deposits upstream in the Iron Creek drainage (Smith, 1909). Bedrock in the area is mostly part of a lower Paleozoic metasedimentary assemblage (Till and others, 1986).
Workings: Iron Creek has been placer mined over about 90 percent of its 5.5 mile length. Most of this mining was by small-scale methods from discovery in 1899 or 1900 to 1914. A dredge operated in 1939 and 1940 but this was probably upstream on Dome Creek (Sainsbury and others, 1972, OFR 512). Mining along the lower part of the creek tried unsuccessfully to use sluices in a tunnel driven between Iron Creek and the Pilgrim River. Water was lost to subsurface flow in areas of carbonate bedrock.
Age: Quaternary; presence of gold-bearing bench deposits indicates two or more cycles of erosion and deposition.
Production: The grade of the placer deposits was reported to be low but considerable mining and remining took place intermittantly from 1899 to 1940.

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

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	SO127

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References