Charlie Creek Mine (placer), Nome Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Charlie Creek Mine (placer)	Mine
Nome Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: Charlie Creek is a south tributary to upper Sinuk River. Placer gold was mined in lower Charlie Creek from below the forks of upper Charlie Creek downstream to where it enters the flood plain of Sinuk River (Collier and others, 1908, plate X). This is locality 80 of Cobb (1972 [MF 463], 1978 [OFR 78-93]).
Geology: Placer gold was mined on Charlie (Charley) Creek on a small scale prior to WWI (Brooks and others, 1901). Moffit (1907) reports that discovery of bismuth minerals in miners' sluice boxes led to the discovery of the bismuth-bearing quartz veins (NM048) in upper Charlie Creek (Moffit, 1907). Hummel and Chapman (1960, p. B32) reported 20 ppm bismuth from a stream sediment sample from Charlie Creek, the highest content of any creek that they sampled in the southwest Seward Peninsula except for Thomson Creek (NM036) in the Kigluaik Mountains. They also reported 300 ppm arsenic, a concentration only equaled at Rock Creek in the Nome C-1 quadrangle, suggesting the presence of arsenopyrite in the creek sediments. Charlie Creek drains pelitic biotite-garnet schist and a highly pyritic pelitic schist (Bundzten and others, 1994). These metasedimentary rocks are probably of Precambrian or early Paleozoic protolith age (Till and Dumoulin, 1994; Bundzten and others, 1994). The schist is cut by numerous quartz veinlets in cross-joints there are a few quartz veins reportedly to be as much as 4 feet wide (Chapin, 1914 [B 592-L, p. 385-395]). The quartz veins or veinlets are probably the source of the gold, native bismuth, bismuthinite and rutile that has been reported from heavy mineral concentrates from Charlie Creek.
Workings: Charlie Creek was known as auriferous by 1901 (Brooks and others, 1901). The creek was mined on a small scale with sluice boxes before 1907 (Moffit, 1907). It probably has been prospected more recently.
Age: Quaternary.

Commodities (Major) - Au; (Minor) - Bi, Ti
Development Status: Undetermined
Deposit Model: Placer Au (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	NM047

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References