Maude S. Prospect, Juneau Mining District, Juneau, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Maude S. Prospect	Prospect
Juneau Mining District	Mining District
Juneau	City Borough
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: The prospect is at an elevation of about 2,500 feet, on the northwest side of the ridge crest that is bounded on the north by Cowee Creek, on the northeast by Canyon Creek, and on the west by South Fork Cowee Creek. It is 1/2 mile northwest of Cottrell Basin, near the center of the NE1/4 section 3, T. 38 S., R. 64 E. of the Copper River Meridian. The location is accurate within 1/4 mile.
Geology: The Maude S deposit was discovered in 1906. It is in black phyllite and graphitic schist, and consists of northwest-trending quartz veins up to 3 feet thick and discontinuous quartz-vein stockworks up to 35 feet thick. U.S. Bureau of Mines samples contained up to 4.4 ppm gold. Workings include a 125-foot adit and 45-foot adit. The deposit was drilled by Houston Oil and Minerals in 1985 (Redman and others, 1989). This prospect is in the Juneau Gold Belt, which consists of more than 200 auriferous quartz vein deposits that have produced nearly 7 million ounces of gold. These gold-bearing mesothermal quartz vein systems form a 160-km-long by 5- to 8-km-wide zone along the western margin of the Coast Mountains. The vein systems are in or near shear zones adjacent to west-verging, mid-Cretaceous thrust faults. The veins are hosted by diverse, variably metamorphosed, sedimentary, volcanic, and intrusive rocks. From the Coast Mountains batholith westward, the host rocks include mixed metasedimentary and metavolcanic sequences of Carboniferous and older, Permian and Triassic, and Jurassic-Cretaceous age. The sequences are juxtaposed along mid-Cretaceous thrust faults (Miller and others, 1994). The sequences are intruded by mid-Cretaceous to middle Eocene plutons, mainly diorite, tonalite, granodiorite, quartz monzonite, and granite. Sheetlike tonalite plutons emplaced just east of the Juneau Gold Belt and undeformed granite and granodiorite bodies that are emplaced farther to the east are between 55 and 48 Ma (Gehrels and others, 1991). The structural grain of the belt is defined by northwest-striking, moderately to steeply northeast-dipping, penetrative foliation that developed between Cretaceous and Eocene time (Miller and others, 1994). The majority of the veins in the Juneau Gold Belt strike northwest. Isotopic dates indicate that the auriferous veins in the Juneau Gold Belt formed between 56 and 55 Ma (Miller and others, 1994; Goldfarb and others, 1997).
Workings: Workings include a 125-foot adit and 45-foot adit. The deposit was drilled by Houston Oil and Minerals in 1985 (Redman and others, 1989).
Age: Isotopic dates indicate that the auriferous veins in the Juneau Gold Belt formed between 56 and 55 Ma (Miller and others, 1994; Goldfarb and others, 1997).

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

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	JU078

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References