Bonanza Hill; Gold Bug; Golden Eagle Prospects, Nome Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Bonanza Hill; Gold Bug; Golden Eagle Prospects	Group of Prospects
Nome Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Chapin (1914, p. 401) proposed that the vein exposed on the Gold Bug and Golden Eagle claims is the same as the vein at the New Era tunnel. This assertion is doubtful, because extensive trenching and some drilling indicate that veins in this area are discontinuous.
Location: The Gold Bug and Golden Eagle prospects reportedly are at an elevation of about 400 feet, halfway between Mountain Creek and Snow Gulch. This prospect, about 2,200 feet northwest of the top of Bonanza Hill, was shown as locality 3 by Hummel (1962 [MF 247]). The locality is included with the Jorgensen and other nearby claims in locality 47 of Cobb (1972 [MF 463], 1978 [OFR 78-9). The map location is just south of the center of section 26, T. 10 S., R. 34 W., Kateel River Meridian.
Geology: Mertie (1918, p. 434) reported that country rock schist at the locality strikes N 32 W and dips 25 S. At the time of Mertie's visit, a 125-foot tunnel had been driven on a 6-foot vein of iron-stained quartz that contained iron sulfides. The vein strikes N 70 E and dips 45 S. According to Mertie, the assays taken at the breast indicated rather high-grade ore. Cathcart (1922, p. 241) reported an 8-inch vertical quartz-feldspar vein at the tunnel face in soft, highly altered schist, free gold in hematitic schist, and small amounts of pyrite and arsenopyrite. The location of the tunnel was not found in 1994, but a quartz-rubble field near a sloughed trench is present at this location (C.C. Hawley, unpublished data, 1994). The quartz rubble appears to lie on schist between two horizontal marble layers. Newmont Mining Company drilled one hole in this area (BR92-010) with unknown results. About 800 feet to the west, schist and marble are moderately dipping, possibly dragged by a nearby fault. Bedrock in the general area is mostly graphitic schist, probably of early Paleozoic protolith age (Hummel, 1962 [MF-247]; Sainsbury, Hummel, and Hudson, 1972 [OFR 72-326]; Till and Dumoulin, 1994; Bundtzen and others, 1994).
Workings: An adit, variously reported as 120- or 125-feet long, was reported by Mertie (1918 [B 662-I, p. 425-449]) and Cathcart (1922); there are two sloughed trenches and a recent drill hole (Newmont Mining Company, unpublished report, 1992) in the area. The area is near the head of Bonanza Gulch, a narrow paystreak, which appears to have supplied placer gold to lower Glacier Creek (NM220).
Age: Mid-Cretaceous or younger; vein cuts schist metamorphosed during the mid-Cretaceous.

Commodities (Major) - Au
Development Status: Undetermined.
Deposit Model: Low-sulfide Au-quartz veins (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 36a).

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	NM228

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References