Boulder Creek Mine (ARDF - NM168), Nome Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Boulder Creek Mine (ARDF - NM168)	Mine
Nome Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: Boulder Creek is a west tributary to Snake River; it flows east from headwaters in the eastern Nome C-2 quadrangle. An alluvial placer gold deposit was worked downstream from the Boulder Creek lode prospect (NM165) over a distance of about a mile. The location is the approximate mid-point of the placer mine and just below the junction of Boulder and Twin Mountain Creeks (Twin Mtn Ck on the map); it is accurate to within about 500 feet. Mining claims on this part of Boulder Creek are patented. This is locality 94 of Cobb (1972, MF-463; 1978, OFR 78-93).
Geology: An alluvial placer gold deposit was worked downstream from the Boulder Creek lode prospect (NM165) over a distance of about a mile. The locality was known shortly after the discovery of the Nome district (Collier and others, 1908, p. 196), and mining claims along the creek are patented. The paystreak varied from about 100 to 300 feet in width and was from 10 to 25 feet deep. Concentrates from Boulder Creek contained native bismuth, stibnite, hematite, ilmenite and magnetite. Scheelite occurred in the concentrates below Twin Mountain Creek (Coats, 1944). The apparent head of the paystreak is the Boulder Creek lode prospect (NM165). The Boulder Creek lode is apparently developed on subsidiary structures to the Rodine fault, a major north-northeast fault of the Nome district (Bundtzen and others, 1994). Some of the placer gold in Boulder Creek is almost certainly derived from the fault and associated mineralized structures. Lower Boulder Creek flows over mica-schist and marble bedrock; some of the marble is strongly altered to ankerite.
Workings: Boulder Creek was worked from about 1900 until as late as 1924 (Smith, 1924). It probably had a moderate amount of production. Collier and others (1908) reported that the gold was coarse but that miners in 1903 were making little more than wages. Placer mine activity was also reported in 1913 (Chapin, 1914, [B 592-L, p. 389]), 1914 (Eakin, 1915 [B 622-I, p. 370), 1916 (Mertie, 1918 [ B 662-I, p. 455]), and 1918 (Cathcart, 1920, p. 188). The miners apparently used an elevated sluice fed by a hydraulic elevator.
Age: Quaternary.
Alteration: Marble is altered to ankerite.

Commodities (Major) - Au; (Minor) - Bi, Sb, W
Development Status: Yes; medium
Deposit Model: Alluvial placer Au (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	NM168

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References