Today I’m posting a 1997 bibliography from the US Bureau of Mines that lists all of the reports, maps, and surveys that the BM had on Alaska mining.  I guess this is about the time that the Bureau of Mines was being shut down by Bill Clinton and most of the functions merged into the BLM. 

I’m not sure if that was the last big government agency to be shutdown, but I can’t think of any other since then.

It’s not easy reading, but it’s a great research document. 

So, take a look at the list-of-blm-docs-on-alaska-mining

Strike It Rich!

True North is, not surprisingly, a region of Alaska that has produced an enormous amount of gold since 1912. 

It took me a time to figure out just where it was, because this docuemnt, which seems to have been prepared for the Alaska Department of Transportation is apparently missing a few pages.  Most of it is not really related to small gold prospectors, but read it until you get to the part about just how thick the original vein of gold was.

That’s probably worth the trouble of downloading it for most of you guys: alaska-mining-true-north-area

Strike It Rich!

If you are thinking about going north to Alaska to go gold prospecting this is the blog post for you: Significant Metalliferous Lode Deposits and Placer Districts of Alaska by the US Geological Survey.  This is pretty much the bible of Alaska gold prospecting.

It has 110 pages of information about the various sites and productions.  It’s a little dense, but it should read like John Grisham to anyone interested in gold prospecting in Alaska.

So, check out significant-alaskan-lode-deposits-and-placer-districts

Strike It Rich!

Charlie

Anyone wanting to become a full-time miner should probably head north to Alaska, because there are vast areas of Alaska where prospectors with modern gold mining equipment have never set foot. In fact, one of the biggest advantages that modern Alaskan prospectors have over their Klondike Rush ancestors is that bush planes, four wheelers, and snowmobile make it much easier to transport modern gold mining equipment and other supplies to remote back country locations.  So, you can spend more time looking for gold and less time looking for food.

However, some of the best areas for modern prospectors may be in Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas on the East Coast and in Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada in the Rocky Mountain region, and Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in the Pacific Northwest, because all of these areas had significant historic production, but have not been mined as intensely as the California gold country. So, if 90% of the gold has yet to be mined in California, 95% or more has probably not been mined in these states.

Also, there are a handful of states like New Hampshire, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Tennessee which have had very limited commercial production, but have never had a huge strike.

If I was betting that’s where I would bet that the best chance for a huge strike to occur, because there is gold in those states. That’s a fact, but it is probably not as accessible to primitive production as in other states.  These are mostly states with small, well-worn mountain and any large viens are probably buried deeper in the more gentle terrain.  Remember, in the West it was the erosion that made the gold there obvious.  The Appalachains just aren’t steep enough to reveal their riches so easily.

Also, it is just not as much a part of the culture, so people may actually not recognize the signs of gold.  Remember, it was the small contingent of Union soldiers from California that first discovered gold in Maryland, because the were nearly all miners.

So, if prospectors really begin to carefully work those areas with modern equipment, such as gold detectors, there is a chance to really hit something monutmental.