McKinley Prospect, Juneau District, Juneau Borough, Alaska, USA
This page is currently not sponsored. Click here to sponsor this page.
Geology: The McKinley prospect was discovered in 1907 and was developed by a 150-foot adit, a 15-foot adit, and 2 trenches. The deposit consists of concordant, boudinaged quartz veins in black phyllite and metagabbro sills (Redman and others, 1989). The quartz veins are up to 1.5 feet thick and 200 feet long, and contain disseminated pyrrhotite. U.S. Bureau of Mines samples contained up to 0.1 ppm gold and 1.8 ppm silver (Redman and others, 1989). This prospect is in the Juneau Gold Belt, which consists of more than 200 gold-quartz-vein deposits that have produced nearly 7 million ounces of gold. These gold-bearing mesothermal quartz vein systems form a zone 160 km long by 5 to 8 km wide along the western margin of the Coast Mountains. The vein systems are in or near shear zones adjacent to west-verging, mid-Cretaceous thrust faults. The veins are hosted by diverse, variably metamorphosed, sedimentary, volcanic, and intrusive rocks. From the Coast Mountains batholith westward, the host rocks include mixed metasedimentary and metavolcanic sequences of Carboniferous and older, Permian and Triassic, and Jurassic-Cretaceous age. The sequences are juxtaposed along mid-Cretaceous thrust faults (Miller and others, 1994). The sequences are intruded by mid-Cretaceous to middle Eocene plutons, mainly diorite, tonalite, granodiorite, quartz monzonite, and granite. Sheetlike tonalite plutons emplaced just east of the Juneau Gold Belt and undeformed granite and granodiorite bodies that are emplaced farther to the east are between 55 and 48 Ma (Gehrels and others, 1991). The structural grain of the belt is defined by northwest-striking, moderately to steeply northeast-dipping, penetrative foliation that developed between Cretaceous and Eocene time (Miller and others, 1994). The majority of the veins in the Juneau Gold Belt strike northwest. Isotopic dates indicate that the auriferous veins in the Juneau Gold Belt formed between 56 and 55 Ma (Miller and others, 1994; Goldfarb and others, 1997).
Workings: The McKinley prospect was discovered in 1907 and was developed by a 150-foot adit, a 15-foot adit and 2 trenches.
Age: Isotopic dates indicate that the auriferous veins in the Juneau Gold Belt formed between 56 and 55 Ma (Miller and others, 1994; Goldfarb and others, 1997).
Commodities (Major) - Ag, Au
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Low-sulfide Au-quartz vein (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 36a)
Mineral List
2 entries listed. 2 valid minerals.
The above list contains all mineral locality references listed on mindat.org. This does not claim to be a complete list. If you know of more minerals from this site, please register so you can add to our database. This locality information is for reference purposes only. You should never attempt to
visit any sites listed in mindat.org without first ensuring that you have the permission of the land and/or mineral rights holders
for access and that you are aware of all safety precautions necessary.
References
Gehrels, G.E., McClelland, W.C., Samson, S.D., and Patchett, P.J., 1991, U-Pb geochronology of detrital zircons from a continental margin assemblage in the northern Coast Mountains, southeastern Alaska: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 28, no. 8, p.1285-1300. Goldfarb, R.J., Miller, L.D., Leach, D.L., and Snee, L.W, 1997, Gold deposits in metamorphic rocks in Alaska, in Goldfarb, R.J., and Miller, L.D., eds., Mineral Deposits of Alaska: Economic Geology Monograph 9, p. 151-190. Miller, L.D., Goldfarb, R.J., Gehrels, G,E., and Snee, L.W., 1994, Genetic links among fluid cycling, vein formation, regional deformation, and plutonism in the Juneau gold belt, southeastern Alaska: Geology, v. 22, p. 203-206 Redman, E.C., Maas, K.M., Kurtak, J.M., and Miller, L.D., 1989, Bureau of Mines Mineral Investigations in the Juneau Mining District, Alaska, 1984-1988, Volume 2--Detailed mine, prospect, and mineral occurrence descriptions, Section D, Juneau Gold Belt Subarea: U.S. Bureau of Mines Special Publication, 424 p.