Gold Run Creek; Poorman Creek Mine, Chisana Mining District, Valdez-Cordova Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Gold Run Creek; Poorman Creek Mine	Mine
Chisana Mining District	Mining District
Valdez-Cordova Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

The mine is in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Preserve.
Location: About 1.4 miles of Gold Run Creek upstream of its confluence with Glacier Creek has been placer mined for gold. Poorman Creek, a headwater tributary to Gold Run Creek, has also been placer mined over most of its 1 mile length. This site is plotted at the junction of Poorman and Gold Run Creeks. It is near the northwest corner of section 23, T. 4 N., R. 19 E. of the Copper River Meridian. This is locality 63 of Richter and others (1975) and National Park Service locality WRST-69 (unpublished data). Cobb and Richter (1980) include this mine under the name 'Gold Run Cr.'. It is accurately located.
Geology: About 1.4 miles of Gold Run Creek upstream of its confluence with Glacier Creek has been placer mined for gold. Poorman Creek, a headwater tributary to Gold Run Creek, has also been placer mined over most of its 1 mile length (Richter and Jones, 1973). These placers were discovered in 1913 and mining took place intermittently to after WW II. Early placer workings described by Capps (1915, 1916) include a 150- by 15-foot area where gravels were 4.5 to 5 feet thick and a 500- by 40-foot area of frozen gravels that were 11 to 15 feet thick. The top 1 to 4 feet of fractured bedrock was also sluiced and some of the gold in it was coarse and round. The auriferous gravels contain subrounded, shale and graywacke clasts and some well-rounded, lava and diorite clasts. The lava and diorite clasts in the stream gravels may have been derived from Quaternary or Tertiary gravels capping Gold Hill in the headwaters of this drainage (Richter and Jones, 1973). The Quaternary or Tertiary gravels on Gold Hill are reported to be gold-bearing (Moffit, 1954). Bedrock is only locally exposed in the channel of this drainage. It includes Jurassic or Cretaceous siliciclastic rocks and small intrusive dikes or plugs. Most of the creek reworks various Quaternary surficial deposits (Richter and Jones, 1973). At Gold Hill, the Chisana pluton intrudes Cretaceous volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks and this placer is one of several developed within or peripheral to the Chisana pluton (Richter and Jones, 1973; Richter and others, 1975).
Workings: About 1.4 miles of Gold Run Creek upstream of its confluence with Glacier Creek has been placer mined for gold. Poorman Creek, a headwater tributary to Gold Run Creek, has also been placer mined over most of its 1 mile length (Richter and Jones, 1973). These placers were discovered in 1913 and mining took place intermittently until after WW II.
Age: Quaternary.
Production: Assuming a price of $20.00 per ounce, about 50,000 ounces of gold were recovered from placers in the Chisana area (Richter and others, 1975). Most of this production was from the Gold Run (this site) and Bonanza Creek (NB079) drainages and about half was produced between 1913 and 1915; some mining continued in the area up to the 1970s.

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

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	NB077

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References