Queen Gulch Mine, Iditarod Mining District, Bethel Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Queen Gulch Mine	Mine
Iditarod Mining District	Mining District
Bethel Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: This placer mine is on Queen Gulch, a northwest-flowing tributary of Crooked Creek. The coordinates are near the mouth of the gulch, about 0.5 mile northwest of the center of section 26, T. 23 N., R. 49 W., of the Seward Meridian. The location is accurate. Queen Gulch is locality 18 of Cobb (1972 [MF 363]); also described in Cobb (1976 [OFR 76-576]).
Geology: Queen Gulch is a 2-mile-long tributary of Crooked Creek. The placer deposit is near the intersection of Queen Gulch and the ancestral 'Donlin Creek' alluvial terrace that developed on the southeast flank of modern Donlin and Crooked Creeks. According to Cady and others (1955) and Bundtzen and Miller (1997), Donlin Creek flowed northeast into the Iditarod River. After regional tilting, the drainage reversed direction and Donlin and Crooked Creeks flowed into the Kuskokwim River. In Queen Gulch, low grade auriferous gravel deposits in the ancestral channel were reworked to form locally rich placer gold deposits. This ancestral bench is probably Late Tertiary in age. The Queen Gulch deposit is about 0.6 mile long. The gravel in it varies from 15 to 65 feet thick. The distribution of the gold in the placer is erratic; some areas were completely barren while other were rich. The source of the placer gold is probably the Donlin Creek lode gold deposit (ID167), which is at the head of Queen Gulch (Miller and Bundtzen, 1994; Bundtzen and Miller, 1997). The principal heavy minerals identified in concentrates of from the mine include cinnabar, stibnite, arsenopyrite, garnet, magnetite, and trace amounts of cassiterite (Cobb, 1967 [OFR 76-576]; Bundtzen, Cox, and Veach, 1987). Production from Queen Gulch was combined with the production from Donlin Creek.
Workings: The Queen Gulch placer deposit was discovered in 1910 (Maddren, 1911; Brooks, 1912). There has been some small scale, open-cut placer mining on Queen Gulch (Cobb, 1973).
Age: The alluvium in modern Queen Gulch is probably Quaternary; the ancestral terrace is probably Late Tertiary.
Production: Production from Queen Gulch was combined with the production from Donlin Creek.
Reserves: None.

Commodities (Major) - Au; (Minor) - Ag, As, Hg, Sn
Development Status: Yes; small
Deposit Model: Placer Au deposit (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a).

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	ID164

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References