Dahl Creek Mine, Kougarok Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Dahl Creek Mine	Mine
Kougarok Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Unnamed tributaries to Quartz Creek are reported to have scheelite in placer concentrates (Anderson, 1947).
Location: Dahl Creek is a northeast -flowing tributary to Quartz Creek. Quartz Creek crosses the Nome-Taylor road at about mile 78.5 at Brakes Bottom. The mouth of Dahl Creek on Quartz Creek is about 8,000 feet upstream from the road crossing. This location is the lower 10,000 feet of Dahl Creek, all of which has been placer mined (Sainsbury and others, 1969). This drainage is included as part of locality 42 of Cobb (1972; MF 417).
Geology: The lower 10,000 feet of Dahl Creek has been placer mined for gold. This mining, starting as early as 1901, has been by various open-cut methods but dozer and sluice operations took place as recently as 1967 (Sainsbury and others, 1969). Some of the gold is coarse and some is intergrown with quartz. A nugget worth $200 (10 ounces?) was recovered in 1931 (Smith, 1933). The gold-bearing gravels are covered by fozen muck from which mammoth and horse bones have been recovered (Collier, 1902). Bench placers were also mined along the lower creek. This part of the creek is just west of Kougarok gravel deposits of Pliocene-Pleistocene age (Hopkins, 1963; Till and others, 1986). The bench gravels, which are about 50 feet above the active drainage and covered by 15 to 20 feet of muck, carry gold in 3 to 4 feet of gravel on a clay bottom (Collier and others, 1908). Brooks (1905) reported that drilling showed the bench gravels to a depth of 180 feet. Early reports described the alluvial pay in the main drainage to be on a false bedrock of clay below which there was a quartz gravel (Collier and others, 1908). A test shaft, which did not reach bedrock, indicated this deep gravel to be at least 187 feet thick. However, Sainsbury and others (1969) reported clay-altered zones with broken quartz veins in bedrock and concluded that the false bedrock described by early reports was instead altered bedrock. Bedrock is locally exposed in the area, primarily on the crest of nearby uplands, but Sainsbury and others (1969) note some bedrock in the drainage 7,000 feet above the mouth. All known bedrock in the area is part of a low grade, Lower Paleozoic metasedimentary assemblage (Sainsbury and others, 1969; Till and others, 1986). Sainsbury and others (1969) emphasize that gold placers in this area are most strongly associated with exposures of the metamorphic bedrock assemblage rather than with Kougarok gravel.
Workings: The lower 10,000 feet of Dahl Creek has been placer mined for gold. This mining, starting as early as 1901, has been by various open-cut methods, but dozer and sluice operations took place as recently as 1967 (Sainsbury and others, 1969). At least one deep (187 feet) test shaft is reported.
Age: Quaternary

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

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	BN006

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References