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

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

Location: This alluvial placer gold mine is on Snow Gulch, a south tributary to Glacier Creek. The mouth of Snow Gulch is about 3,400 feet upstream of the Snake River road crossing of Glacier Creek, and part of the Snake River road parallels Snow Gulch about 500 feet to the west. Essentially all of Snow Gulch has been placer mined, and the location, at an elevation of about 250 feet, is the approximate midpoint of the placer workings. This location is just inside the east-central border of section 26, T. 10 S., R. 34 W., Kateel River Meridian. It is included in locality 101 of Cobb (1972 [MF 463], 1978 [OFR 78-93]).
Geology: This small south tributary to Glacier Creek (NM220), only about three quarters of a mile long, contained one of the richest gold placers on Seward Peninsula and produced more than 48,000 ounces of gold around 1900; the first claims on the creek were staked in 1898 (Schrader and Brooks, 1900; Brooks and others, 1901). It was mined and remined between 1899 and 1903 and still is mined on a small scale. The gold was distributed throughout 3- to 4-foot-thick gravels. In many places, the deposit was cleaned to bedrock and in 1903, when visited by the U.S. Geological Survey, there was little potential for further mining (Collier and others, 1908, p. 195). Snow Gulch contains significant amounts of placer scheelite, and some has been recovered (Coats, 1944). Coats (1944) considered Snow Gulch one of the more important tungsten localities in the Nome district. The source of the placer deposits is mainly lodes near the head of the gulch. The upper south fork of Snow Gulch heads in an area where lode prospects were found as early as 1899 (U.S. Mineral Survey No. 775); the upper north fork heads easterly into a complex sheeted vein zone (Saddle zone, NM233). Bedrock in the area is schist and some marble that probably has an early Paleozoic protolith age (Hummel, 1962 [MF 247]; Sainsbury, Hummel, and Hudson, 1972 [OFR 72-326]; Till and Dumoulin, 1994; Bundtzen and others, 1994).
Workings: Largely worked out by 1903, but some small-scale mining continues to the present. It was a shallow placer amenable to hand and simple hydraulic mining.
Age: Quaternary.
Production: Snow Gulch was one of the richest gold placers on Seward Peninsula. More than 48,000 ounces of gold were produced around 1900, and there has been minor unrecorded production to the present.

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

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	NM222

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References