Nugget Gulch Mine, Nome Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Nugget Gulch Mine	Mine
Nome Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: Nugget Gulch is an east tributary to Oregon Creek in section 27, T. 9 S., R. 35 W., Kateel River Meridian. The mouth of Oregon Creek is where the Nome-Teller road crosses Cripple River. The gulch was mined about due south of the former village of Oregon; some mining was also done about 1 mile upstream. The location given is in the mined segment southeast of Oregon. Nugget Gulch is localities 73 and 74 of Cobb (1972 [MF 463], 1978 [OFR 78-93]).
Geology: Nugget Gulch was discovered and worked before 1901 (Brooks and others, 1901, p. 92, 95; Moffit, 1906, p. 136; Eakin, 1915, p. 369-370). A short distance above the junction of Nugget Gulch and Oregon Creek, a 25-foot-wide paystreak was discovered at a depth of 6 to 20 feet on a yellow clay, false bedrock on marble. The gold was relatively fine grained; most of the nuggets weighed less than 0.05 ounce. The gold occurred in a heavy mineral sand consisting mostly of fine octahedral magnetite. The concentrates also contained garnet, specular hematite, rutile, scheelite, native bismuth and pyrite, partly oxidized to hematite. Gold was also found intergrown with native bismuth (Collier and others, 1908, p. 213-214). A small deposit containing a similar suite of heavy minerals was mined in the 1903 season at a location about 1 mile above the mouth of the creek. The paystreak in upper Nugget Creek was 3 to 6 feet deep and from 30 to 50 feet wide. The upper paystreak was worked out in one season. Bedrock in this area is primarily marble, but it locally includes partly oxidized pyritic greenstone. The marble unit exposed near the mouth of Nugget Gulch is the massive marble unit of Bundtzen and others (1994). About 1 mile above the mouth of the creek, marble is succeeded by a calc-schist unit.
Workings: A placer discovery was made, probably by shafting, before 1901 (Brooks and others, 1901) and the deposit was mainly mined out before about 1906 (Collier and others, 1908). Two claims, reportedly for gold and bismuth, were active in 1958 (Heiner and Porter, 1972, Kardex site Kx 52-98; Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, 1982).
Age: Quaternary.

Commodities (Major) - Au; (Minor) - Bi, W
Development Status: Yes; small
Deposit Model: Alluvial placer Au (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

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Link to USGS - Alaska:	NM147

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References