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Underground mining continued at a variety of locations around the pass until 1951. In the 1980s one of the area's hard-rock mines was briefly re-opened. At least one mining company is actively exploring for gold in the area now. Through 2006 the district produced 667-thousand ounces of hard rock gold and 60-thousand ounces of placer gold.
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sedimentary rocks of the Arkose Ridge
Formations lie to the south of the schist and intrusives, across a low-angle detachment fault. Those bedded rocks are derived from the schists and intrusive rocks to the north. A rock unit variously mapped as intricately intermixed amphibolite and quartz diorite;
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area. The first mining efforts were placer mining of stream gravels, and placer mining in the area has continued sporadically to this day. Robert
Hatcher discovered gold and staked the first claim in the Willow Creek valley in September 1906. The first lode mill in the area started operating in 1908.
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sedimentary rocks, of Late
Cretaceous to Paleocene age. The schist may represent subducted Valdez Group that was exhumed in the forearc region from beneath the Peninsular terrane. Both deformed and undeformed small felsic dikes occur in the schist. Several bodies of serpentinite are contained within
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Gold-bearing (+/- Ag, W, Sb, As, Cu, Mo, Pb, Te, Zn, Hg) veins occur in the tonalite, in small amounts in the schist, and in the
Jurassic? migmatite, but not in the western quartz monzonite or in the Tertiary sediments. Most of the mineral deposits are close to the tonalite-schist contact.
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with the gold. In 1943, Independence Mine was ordered to close. Mining interests returned to
Hatchers Pass when gold prices rose in the mid-1970s; this resulted in a short period of production from the Independence Mine in 1982 by Coronado Mining Company.
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In 1942, the War
Production Board designated gold mining as nonessential to the war effort. Gold mining throughout the United States came to a halt, but Independence Mine was permitted to continue to operate because of the presence of
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Public-data File 83-9 RECONNAISSANCE GEOLOGY AND GEOCHEMISTRY OF THE WILLOW CREEK-HATCHER PASS AREA, ALASKA M. Albanese, J.T. Kline, T.K. Bundtzen, and K. Kline Alaska
Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys May
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The Willow Creek district at
Hatcher Pass is historically the third-largest lode-gold producing district in Alaska, having produced 624,000 oz of gold. At Hatcher Pass proper the southwestern margin of the
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and in contact with the Arkose Ridge
Formation and quartz monzonite east of the Little Susitna River. It is not clear if the migmatite is a higher-metamorphic-grade equivalent of the schist.
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The Gold Cord Mine (Gold, copper, lead, zinc, tungsten), produced about 16,000 ounces of gold, mainly between 1931 and 1938, from veins with grades ranging for 0.1 to 9 ounces per ton.
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The Willow Creek Mines includes the Lucky Shot mine (Gold, copper, lead, zinc, arsenic) and War Baby mine (Gold, copper) veins, which produced from veins cutting the igneous
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Madden et al., Ages and
Geologic relationships in the Willow Creek gold mining district, southwestern Talkeetna Mts., southern Alaska, USGS Open File 87-143, 1987
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270:. Combined production for the two mines between 1919 and 1940 was about 252,000 ounces of gold, with some copper. Grade was about 2.2 ounces of gold per ton.
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The Independence was the largest mine in the Willow Creek District, over a dozen other hard rock mines operated, and may operate again, within a few miles.
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The Gold Bullion Mine (Gold, copper, mercury), produced about 77,000 ounces of gold, at a grade of 1.7 ounces per ton, from quartz veins in igneous rock.
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The Martin Mine (Gold, copper, lead), produced about 28,000 ounces of gold from two veins between 1911 and 1920, at an average grade of 1 ounce per ton.
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351:"Age and Cooling History of Gold Deposits and Host Rocks in the Willow Creek Mining District, Talkeetna Mountains, South-Central Alaska"
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121:. Underground hard-rock mining of gold from quartz veins accounts for most of the mineral wealth extracted from the
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285:), produced about 44,000 ounces of gold between 1922 and 1950 from quartz veins in shears in igneous rock.
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What is now called Independence Mine was once two mines: The Alaska Free Gold Mine on
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334:"Alaskas Mineral Industry 2006, Zumigal and Hughes, DGGS Special Report 61"
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body underlying Hatcher Pass and the headwaters of Willow Creek, and a 67
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or as a migmatite, occurs in contact with the Arkose Ridge formation on
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pluton farther west. The schist to the south consists mainly of
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322:Alaska Resource Data File, USGS Open File 98-599
319:http://ardf.wr.usgs.gov/ardf_data/Anchorage.pdf
179:the schist. Unmetamorphosed Late Cretaceous or
470:Geography of Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska
207:Independence Mine is now a State Historic Park
274:Other Notable Lode-Gold mines of the District
241:Dorothy Page Museum and Old Wasilla Townsite
235:Today, Independence Mine is a part of the
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237:Independence Mine State Historical Park
111:Independence Mine/Hatcher Pass district
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405:: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
281:The Fern Mine (Gold, lead, tungsten,
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23:Willow Creek mining district
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262:Entrance to Lucky Shot Mine
145:is in fault contact with a
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475:Mining districts in Alaska
117:area in the U.S. state of
439:Anchorage quad ARDF, USGS
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31:Alaska Mining District
16:Alaska Mining District
465:Gold mining in Alaska
301:Gold mining in Alaska
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156:(million years old)
109:, also known as the
213:Skyscraper Mountain
140:Talkeetna Mountains
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254:Willow Creek mines
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88:61.783°N 149.250°W
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69:Coordinates:
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390:. Retrieved
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184:terrestrial
115:gold-mining
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459:Categories
392:2017-09-18
361:2015-09-01
307:References
132:Cretaceous
283:tellurium
221:scheelite
168:monzonite
143:batholith
401:cite web
295:See also
225:tungsten
181:Tertiary
176:deformed
158:tonalite
136:Tertiary
79:149°15′W
147:pelitic
113:, is a
76:61°47′N
165:quartz
150:schist
119:Alaska
386:(PDF)
379:(PDF)
337:(PDF)
429:1983
407:link
229:lode
174:and
138:age
105:The
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