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

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

Location: The Quarry prospect is on a gentle ridge between Willow Creek and Cripple River at an elevation of about 900 feet and near the southeast corner of section 13, T. 9 S., R. 35 W., Kateel River Meridian. The prospect is about 1,000 feet northeast of, and visible from, the Nome-Teller road. It is probably the same deposit referred to as Kardex site Kx 52-38 in Heiner and Porter (1972) and shown at the head of Willow Creek in a claim map published by Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys (1982). This is locality 8 of Cobb (1972 [MF 463], 1978 [OFR 78-93]).
Geology: The Quarry prospect is in the contact zone of marble and underlying schist; the marble unit is probably part of the massive marble unit of Bundtzen and others (1994) The main minerals are quartz, fluorite, and barite that replace the marble. They occur with disseminated to semimassive pods of galena, sphalerite and boulangerite. Galena and sphalerite also occur as disseminations in aragonite and calcite veins. The occurrence is nearly stratabound, but cross-cutting replacement fronts of ankerite, partly oxidized to limonite, flank the mineral deposits. A large lead and zinc soil anomaly, about 2000 by 6000 feet and elongated northwesterly along the marble-schist contact, is developed over the prospect. Grab samples contained as much as 0.02 ounce gold per ton and 5.30 ounces silver per ton (Herried, 1970). Fluid inclusion studies (Brobst and others, 1971) show that mineralization was fairly high temperature (near 250 degrees F). The abundance of fluorite and slightly anomalous amounts of elements such as beryllium led Brobst and others (1971) to suggest a Late Cretaceous age of mineralization, similar to the fluorite-rich tin deposits of the northwestern Seward Peninsula. Herreid (1970) interpreted the mineralization as being associated with a thrust at the base of the marble unit. In general, most of the relations are also consistent with mineralization controlled by shearing between two units of differing competency. The prospect is on strike with, and in a similar structural and stratigraphic setting to, the Galena prospect (NM135) about 2 miles to the northwest.
Workings: Some workings on the property appear to have been done about the time of World War I (Herreid, 1966, 1970). The prospect was probably re-exposed when work was done on a rock quarry for the Nome-Teller road. Fluorite-rich samples were collected by Mulligan and Hess (1965), probably from old workings. Heiner and Porter (1972) reported claim activity by Foster in 1966. The claims were later taken over by W. Hoogendorn and associates. The deposit was examined in the 1990's by Kennecott Exploration Company and by Cominco Exploration. A caved shaft probably dates from the earliest exploration.
Age: Probably Late Cretaceous; post regional metamorphism.
Alteration: Silicification, dolomitization, and ankeritization.

Commodities (Major) - Ag, Ba, F, Pb, Zn; (Minor) - Au, Sb
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Stratabound replacement lode of quartz-fluorite-barite with associated galena a

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	NM135

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References