Wakeup Creek Mine, Koyukuk Mining District, Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Wakeup Creek Mine	Mine
Koyukuk Mining District	Mining District
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

See also: Jim Pup (CH024).
Location: Wakeup Creek is a small tributary of Jim Pup approximately 1 1/2 to 2 miles southwest of Bob Johnson Lake (formerly Big Lake). The site is across a low pass at the head of Lake Creek (sec. 26, T. 31 N., R. 9 W., of the Fairbanks Meridian). Mining has occurred for approximately 1,500 feet upstream from the mouth of Wakeup Creek. The location is accurate within a 1/4-mile radius.
Geology: Wakeup Creek has placer gold at three creek levels (Reed, 1938). The present channel lies on older gravel fill and does not cut bedrock. Minor gold was produced from these surface gravels in the early days (about 1910), but the gravels have since been covered by tailings from later mining. A deep channel, which is a continuation of the deep channel on Jim Pup (CH024), is also present and has been mined for about 1,500 feet upstream from the confluence of Jim Pup and Wakeup Creek. It is about 55 feet deep at this confluence and deepens to 112 feet 1,500 feet upstream. The deep channel is incised into hard, smooth, schist bedrock with five or six gutters, 2 to 4 feet deep along its bottom and has 5 feet of gravel lying on top of the bedrock. The channel is about 25 feet wide at its lower end and narrows upstream to 15 to 20 feet. The gold is generally on the high points of the bedrock between the gutters but in places is also distributed throughout the gravel. The gold is fine but rather rough with only a few larger pieces; values run from $3.50 to $4.00 per bedrock foot (at $35 per ounce of gold). The high channel on Wakeup Creek appears to be a former channel of Jim Pup, which ran toward Bob Johnson Lake (formerly Big lake), the reverse of the present drainage. The depth to bedrock in this channel is about 20 feet where it had been opened up in 1937; although no gold had been produced from this channel as of 1937, it was said to run about $0.50 per square foot of bedrock (Reed, 1938).
Workings: Surface and underground workings. Drift mining of the deep channel in the 1930s.
Age: Quaternary.

Commodities (Major) - Au
Development Status: Yes; small
Deposit Model: Placer Au (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 39a)

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	CH025

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References