Nome placer field Mines, Nome Mining District, Nome Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Nome placer field Mines	Group of Mines
Nome Mining District	Mining District
Nome Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: This extensive placer gold deposit that has been mined intensively since before WWI occupies large parts of sections 11, 12, 13, and 14, T. 11 S., R. 34 W., of the Kateel River Meridian. The coordinates are immediately north of the Nome-Teller road in the SE1/4SE1/4 section 11. The site is accurately located (Bundtzen and others, 1994, sheet 1). It is approximately the same as locality 138 of Cobb (1972 [MF 463]). In his description of location 138, Cobb lists Center, Flat, Holyoke, Lake, Saturday, Wonder, and Little Creek claims and two operating companies: Hammon Consolidated Gold Fields and U.S. Smelting and Refining Company. The field was also extensively mined by the Pioneer Mining Company in the early days of the district. For convenience in this record, this composite placer deposit is hereafter referred to as the Nome placer field.
Geology: The Nome placer field formed where the rich Anvil Creek alluvial placer (NM236) was reworked by marine processes where it flowed out onto a coastal plain. An ancestral Anvil Creek channel flowed southeasterly, turned south near modern Center Creek (not named on the 1970 revision of the topographic map but probably is the drainage near the northeast runway of the Nome airport), and eventually merged with Submarine Beach (NM285 and NM286). The field spreads out along the Third Beach (NM258). It is very wide southwest of Third Beach through the area of buried auriferous abrasion platforms seaward of Third Beach. The deposit includes a large part of the richest portion of Third Beach between Little Creek to the west and Dry Creek to the east (Moffit, 1906, p. 134; Moffit, 1907, p. 134-144; Collier and others, 1908, p. 34, 162-163). The general location of the deposit as it was recognized in 1906 can be inferred from patterns of gold distribution shown by Collier and others (1908, plate X). The deposit is mainly developed on schist bedrock, but higher level gold concentrations occur in fan and delta-like deposits formed at times when an ancient Anvil drainage flowed into the ocean. The rather complex relations were summarized by Metcalfe and Tuck, 1942, p. 37): 'At the foothill edge of the coastal plain is an indistinguishable zone of intermixed stream and marine deposits....In this area, gold is found throughout the overburden, in horizons, in small stream channels, and as disseminations. Marine and stream gravel is often intermixed. When the shoreline was close to the hills, Anvil, Cooper, and Dry Creeks emptied gold-bearing detritus directly into the sea. In part this material formed an alluvial fan deposit and, when deposited directly into the sea, a delta..... Under such conditions, gold distribution is very erratic. Further from the foothills the gold occurs in more regular horizons.' Placer gold at Nome is very close to 900 fine; Anvil Creek averages 897 and varies from 894 to 905 (Metcalfe and Tuck, 1942, p. 41). Garnet was relatively abundant near Third Beach; sulfides, principally pyrite and arsenopyrite, locally occurred in concentrates seaward of Third Beach. In general, minerals in the concentrates are magnetite, ilmenite, scheelite, garnet, pyrite, and arsenopyrite. Based on testing done by Fairbanks Exploration Company in 1939, after stripping all available free gold with mercury, the sulfides appear to contain about 0.25 to 0.75 ounce of gold per ton. Metcalfe and Tuck (1942) strongly suggest that some of the gold, and therefore sulfides, could have come from marine erosion of the bedrock surface itself. The field was first worked by drifting by the Pioneer Mining Company, especially between 1904 and 1910. The average value of an almost continuous drift mine 3,000 feet in length was $4.51 or 0.22 ounce of gold per bedrock foot. Some of the ground contained an ounce of gold to the bedrock foot (Metcalfe and Tuck, 1942, figure 1). The area was mined hydraulically by the Pioneer Company from 1910 to 1922 and then by Hammon and Fairbanks Exploration companies from 1923 until 1934. During the period from 1904 until 1934, about $8,000,000 in gold (about 387,000 ounces of gold) was recovered from the area. The field furnished a significant amount of production of the Nome district (Bundtzen and others, 1994). The deposit was subsequently dredged until 1965. It was last mined as an open pit in 1994. NovaGold Resources, Inc. (2007, Nome) has owned most of the ground that comprises this site since 1999 and is evaluating the placer gold potential of the Nome coastal plain. They developed a computer database of the approximately 8,000 holes drilled by the the Alaska Gold Company and its corporate predecessors over the long life of this major placer district. In addition, NovaGold and Kennecott Exploration have drilled new holes. The objective is to define mineable reserves that could be produced either by open pit methods or perhaps by rehabilitated dredges that were once operated by Alaska Gold in the area. As of March 28, 2007, an updated resource estimate was produced for NovaGold (2007, Reserve) by the Norwest Corporation. The property contains a measured and indicated resource of 1.6 million ounces of gold and an inferred resource of 300,000 ounces of gold. The gold is in a 194-million-tonne resource of sand and gravel which is valuable in its own right.
Workings: A buried alluvial gold deposit was discovered in the canyon of Anvil Creek in 1898 by Lindblom, Brynteson, and Lindeberg, who later formed Pioneer Mining Company. The men also located placer claims on the coastal plain along an ancient buried channel of Anvil Creek that lies between Little and Dry Creeks. These claims covered important parts of the Nome placer field deposit. Extensive underground mining of this deposit occurred between 1904 and 1910. In late 1904, the Third Beach deposit (NM258) was discovered. In the Nome placer field area, the upland limit of the Third Beach deposit was sharp and against a bedrock escarpment. The beach deposits contributed to the richness of the ancient Anvil Creek channel, and related abrasion deposits were mined seaward from Third Beach. The deposit as finally mined includes the ancestral Anvil Creek channel, Third Beach, and abrasion and transient or remnant beaches on the abrasion platform offshore from Third Beach. After drifting, the deposit was mined by surface hydraulic methods, generally with hydraulic elevators, from 1910 to 1934; it was then dredged until 1965. Final production from the area, in the 1980's until 1994, was by open-pit operations that trucked ore to central washing plants. This gold field which was mined nearly continuously for nearly a century was the most important, spatially continuous placer operation in the Nome mining district. NovaGold Resources, Inc. has owned most of the ground that comprises this site since 1999 and is evaluating the the placer gold potential of the Nome coastal plain (NovaGold Resources Inc., 2007, Nome). They developed a computer database of the some 8,000 holes drilled by the the Alaska Gold Company and its corporate predecessors over the long life of this major placer district. In addition, NovaGold and Kennecott Exploration have drilled new holes. The objective is to define mineable reserves that could be produced either by open pit methods or perhaps by rehabilitated dredges that were once operated by Alaska Gold in the area.
Age: Pliocene (?) and Quaternary; sea-level fluctuations are very important in the history of this deposit.
Production: Production by dredges and surface workings of about $8,000,000 in gold (about 387,000 ounces) from 1904 to 1934 and extensive production after WW II.
Reserves: The property contains a measured and indicated resource of 1.6 million ounces of gold and an inferred resource of 300,000 ounces of gold (NovaGold Resources, Inc., 2007, Reserve). The gold is in a 194 million tonne resource of sand and gravel which is valuable in its own right.

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

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	NM251

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References