Christophosen Prospect, Nome Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Christophosen Prospect	Prospect
Nome Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

See Aurora prospect (NM140).
Location: The Christophosen prospect is on the ridge between the headwaters of Oregon Creek and Penny River; it is at an elevation of 1,620 feet at the ridge crest. Better mineralization occurs on the east slopes of the ridge, and the location shown is the approximate center of an area of zinc-bearing mineralization located within about 500 feet. The Christophosen prospect is on strike with and related to the Aurora prospect (NM140). This location is about 1.25 miles west-southwest of the location given by Cobb (locality 10; 1972 [MF 463], 1978 [OFR78-93]).
Geology: The Christophosen prospect was discovered before 1916. When Mertie (1918 [B 662-I, p. 447]) visited the prospect in 1916, he found one caved shaft and reported sphalerite and pyrite with quartz. The locality was visited by Herreid (1968), who reported dolomite with sparsely disseminated galena, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite in an old prospect area. Approximately 500 feet south-southeast of the Christophosen pits is a rubble crop of sphalerite-bearing schist, similar to that found at the Aurora Creek prospect (NM140). It apparently lies stratigraphically above a graphitic quartz schist, as does the Aurora deposit. The zinc content of soils near the rubble crop exceeds 2,000 ppm; the soil also is strongly anomalous in lead and silver. The rubble crop is contained within a broader, north-northwest trending soil anomaly about 1,200 feet long and 400 feet wide where samples contain 1,000 ppm or more zinc. A lens of fine-grained cherty rock, possibly an exhalite layer, with disseminated galena, sphalerite, and stibnite appears to be stratigraphically above the sphalerite-bearing schist (Cindy Buxton and C.C. Hawley, written communication 1992). Country rock in the area of the prospect has been interpreted as a tightly folded complex of felsic metavolcanic schist and complexly mixed chloritic, calcareous, and felsic schist (Bundtzen and others, 1994).
Workings: Several prospect pits are present; a shallow shaft was caved by 1916. Surface examination and sampling by Kennecott Exploration Company in 1991 and 1992.
Age: Syngenetic in early Paleozoic (Devonian?) sedimentary and marine volcanic rocks.
Alteration: Dolomitization?

Commodities (Major) - Zn; (Minor) - Ag, Au, Pb, Sb
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Metamorphosed volcanogenic massive sulfide (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 28a [Ku

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	NM141

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References