Too Much Gold Prospect, Fairbanks Mining District, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Too Much Gold Prospect	Prospect
Fairbanks Mining District	Mining District
Fairbanks North Star Borough	Borough
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: The Too Much Gold prospect is located on the ridge between upper Too Much Gold Creek and Fairbanks Creek; NW1/4 sec. 22, T. 3 N., R. 2 E., of the Fairbanks Meridian.
Geology: This prospect was discovered in the early 1980's when Placid Oil Company conducted soil sampling over the Wolf Creek and Too Much Gold Creek basins (Porterfield and Croff, 1986). This work outlined extensive gold and arsenic soil anomalies extending over 10,000 feet on a west-northwesterly trend from the southwest side of lower Too Much Gold Creek to near the junction of Goose Creek and Wolf Creek. The soil samples defined two parallel gold-arsenic soil anomaly zones in the Too Much Gold Creek basin with values ranging from 400 to over 1,000 ppm arsenic and 1 to over 3 ppm gold. In 1985, Placid Oil drilled three diamond drill holes in the Wolf Creek basin in an attempt to determine the source for the gold-arsenic soil anomaly in this area. These holes intersected the lower exhalitive unit of the Cleary sequence which contained disseminated sulfides and stibnite but no significant gold mineralization (Porterfield and Croff, 1986). Placid Oil also drilled two diamond drill holes on the gold-arsenic soil anomaly in the Too Much Gold Creek basin. These two holes failed to intersect significant mineralization. Placid Oil Company conducted no further work on the prospect. A total of eight trenches covering 3,942 feet were excavated, following up on the soil anomalies (Klessig, 1988). Following the return of trench analyses, a total of 2,476 feet of reverse circulation drilling was completed in 8 holes. Trenching and drilling were concentrated on the smaller, southwestern, linear gold-arsenic soil anomaly. Significant mineralization was encountered in trenching and drilling. Based on these results, inferred reserves for the Too Much Gold zone are 1,613,885 tons that contain 0.065 ounces of gold per ton to a depth of 50 feet (P. Metz, written commun., 1988). Freeman (1992) summarized the following important characteristics of the Too Much Gold prospect. Mineralization is hosted by highly oxidized metarhyolite tuff, iron-oxide stained chloritic schist, and quartzite. Except for sporadic silver-sulfosalts, sulfide minerals are rare in the Too Much Gold prospect trenches due to intense supergene and possible hypogene oxidation. Small amounts of oxidized argentiferous tetrahedrite and jamesonite-boulangerite are present where elevated silver grades occur. Oxidation of pyrite, arsenopyrite and lead-silver-antimony sulfosalt minerals results in intense red hematite, limonite, kermesite, apple-green scorodite, and white to pale-yellow stibiconite-cervantite. Gold mineralization is accompanied by an average of less than 10% white to clear quartz veinlets. Anomalous gold commonly is associated with elevated silver, arsenic, antimony, lead and zinc. The trenching indicated that a poorly defined shear zone hosts significant gold and silver mineralization; it trends approximately N 80 W through the prospect from Too Much Gold Creek to the ridgeline between Goose Creek and Too Much Gold Creek.
Workings: Exploration consisted of soil sampling, trenching, diamond drilling and reverse circulation drilling. A total of eight trenches covering 3,942 feet were excavated (Klessig, 1988). Following the return of trench analyses, a total of 2,476 feet of reverse circulation drilling was completed in eight holes.
Alteration: Except for sporadic silver-sulfosalts, sulfide minerals are rare in the Too Much Gold trenches due to intense supergene and possible hypogene oxidation. Small amounts of oxidized argentiferous tetrahedrite and jamesonite-boulangerite are present where elevated silver grades occur. Oxidation of pyrite, arsenopyrite and lead-silver-antimony sulfosalt minerals results in intense red hematite, limonite, kermesite, apple-green scorodite, and white to pale-yellow stibiconite-cervantite (Freeman, 1991).

Commodities (Major) - Au
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Gold mineralization hosted by low-sulfide highly oxidized metarhyolite tuff, ir

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Link to USGS - Alaska:	LG178

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References