Buzzard Creek Mine (Gulch), Kougarok Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Buzzard Creek Mine (Gulch)	Mine
Kougarok Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: Buzzard Creek is a small north tributary to Noxapaga River. It is about 2,500 feet to the east and parallel to Black Gulch (BN018). The location of placer workings on this creek is approximate but its entire length is less than one mile. This is locality 51 of Cobb (1972; MF 417; 1975; OFR 75-429).
Geology: Gold was discovered soon after the turn of the century on tributaries to the Noxapaga River including Buzzard Creek (Collier and others, 1908) and mining took place here after WW II (Hopkins, 1963; Cobb, 1975, OFR 75-429). Frozen, stratified peat and silt (muck), 20 to 30 feet-thick, commonly overlies a few feet of auriferous gravel that is on schist bedrock (Hopkins, 1963, Figure 8, p. 94). Muck locally contains bones of extinct Pleistocene mammals. Although tundra cover of bedrock is extensive in the area (Till and others, 1986), Hopkins (1963) indicates that quartz-calcite veins are common in schist bedrock of the gold- producing tributaries to the Noxapaga River.
Workings: Surface open-cut placer mining, including dozer and sluice operations, took place on this creek.
Age: Quaternary; an early radiocarbon age on shallow parts of the frozen and stratifed peat and silt of nearby Black Gulch was 8,800 +/- 200 years (Hopkins, 1963, Figure 8).
Production: Significant mining seems to have taken place just before WW II (Smith, 1939, B 910A; 1939, B 017A; 1941) and after (Hopkins, 1963).

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

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	BN019

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References