1. Mineral Resources
  2. Online Spatial Data
  3. Mineral Resource Data System (MRDS)

Bartels Mine

Past Producer in Alaska, United States with commodity Tin
Map
XML
JSON
KML
B

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10308727
Record type Site
Current site name Bartels Mine
Alternate or previous names Cape Mountain, Canoe, Percy Lode

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -167.96243, 65.58625 (WGS84)
Relative position This is an area of lode cassiterite mineralization at an elevation of about 1,000 feet, that straddles the ridge separating the headwaters of Cape Creek (TE006) and Goodwin Gulch (TE004); it is the source area for most of the cassiterite in the Cape Creek (TE006) and Goodwin Gulch (TE004) placers (Mulligan, 1966, p. 22). Several different cassiterite-bearing zones in bedrock are present within an area of about 2,000 feet long in a north-south direction and 800 feet across in an east-west direction; the area includes the Canoe prospect and Percy Lode (Mulligan, 1966, p. 22). This area was not identified separately by Cobb and Sainsbury (1972). Cobb summarized relevant references under the name 'Cape Mtn.'.
(click for info)

Geographic areas

Country State
United States Alaska

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Tin Primary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Cassiterite Ore
Arsenopyrite Gangue
Clay Gangue
Feldspar Gangue
Fluorite Gangue
Muscovite Gangue
Pyrite Gangue
Quartz Gangue
Tourmaline Gangue

Alteration

  • Alteration at Cape Mountain is conspicuous by its absence. Clay development has been noted along fractures and bedding and minor tourmaline replacement of granite is present along some contacts. Tourmaline may also be disseminated in marble adjacent to granite. Minor skarn development includes pyroxene-fluorite +/- quartz, calcite, scheelite, scapolite, and pyrrohotite selvages in marble adjacent to small granite pegmatites. Calcite-muscovite-fluorite-tremolite rocks found on mine dumps may be a replacement selvage in marble but they are not abundant in the area. Discontinuous and small quartz veins also contain muscovite, some tourmaline, and locally abundant iron-oxide. However, many altered fractures or veins consisting of gossanous quartz+/-tourmaline contain only anomalous amounts of tin. The only sulfide mineral that is commonly present is arsenopyrite, both as disseminations in yellow-orange weathering seriate granite and in vein assemblages.

Mineral occurrence model information

Model code 47
USGS model code 15b
Deposit model name Sn veins

Nearby scientific data

(1) -167.96243, 65.58625
ListMap

Comments on the geologic information

  • Geologic Description = The Bartel Mine area contains the most significant lode cassiterite mineralization known in the Cape Mountain area; it is the source area for the Cape Creek and Goodwin Gulch placers that produced about 1,670 short tons of tin. The only lode production (6 short tons) from the Cape Mountain area is from the Bartel Mine. The mineralized area straddles the contact of the Late Cretaceous Cape Mountain biotite granite (78.8 +/- 2.9 my; Hudson and Arth, 1983, p. 789) with Mississippian marble (Sainsbury, 1972). The mineralization includes cassiterite disseminated in tourmalinized granite, quartz-cassiterite grains in granite, and cassiterite-bearing lenticular pods in marble. Selvages and pods of toumalinized granite are developed locally along fractures and discontinuous small quartz veins; felsic dikes locally have tourmalinized margins. Cassiterite forms disseminations and clots in some of the tourmalinized rocks but much of this material contains only anomalous amounts of tin. In general, toumalinization is very minor in the area (Collier, 1904, p. 39; Hudson, 1984). Cassiterite-bearing quartz veins in granite are small, discontinous and locally developed. They have been identified in one area about 1,000 feet south of the Lucky Queen adit (Mulligan, 1966, p. 24). Here, USBM dozer trenches exposed clay-altered granite with minor quartz veins that generally contain just a few hundreths per cent tin although one 3-foot wide trench sample contained 1.34 % tin (Mulligan, 1966, p. 30). The most significant lode mineralization in the area is in the northeast contact zone of the Cape Mountain biotite granite with adjacent marble. Here discontinuous veins and pods of quartz, muscovite, and cassiterite are present along granite/marble contacts and more commonly within marble. Only minor mineralization appears to be developed solely within granite. The grade of these deposits can be very high but their individual size is small. The largest individual deposit that has been identified is about 150 feet long and a few to 66 inches wide (Heide and others, 1946). The average width of this deposit is 17 inches and the average grade (as determined from 18 trench samples) is 7.24 % tin (Heide and others, 1946, p. 10). The cassiterite is commonly in coarse aggregates of subhedral to euhedral crystals. This type of mineralization appears to be the principal source of placer cassiterite in nearby Cape Creek and Goodwin Gulch. Boron, fluorine, and arsenic geochemically characterize the mineralization in this area (Hudson, 1984, p. 12). Two high grade samples (6.3 and 11.8 % tin) collected from USBM trenches contained greater than 1,000 ppm arsenic, variable boron contents (9,380 and 235 ppm respectively), and moderate amounts of fluorine (2,800 and 650 ppm respectively). In fourteen samples from the mineralized area (including the two high grade samples above; Hudson, 1984, p. 14), base metals have low to anomalous concentrations, tungsten ranges up to 610 ppm, and tantalum ranges from 3 to 14 ppm. Hydrothermal alteration or calc-silicate development is conspicuously not widespread or extensively developed in the area. Knopf (1908, p. 37-38) describes local granite pegmatites with thin pyroxene-fluorite-quartz-calcite hornfels along contacts with marble; scheelite and pyrrohotite are present as sparse, scattered grains in this hornfels.
  • Age = Late Cretaceous; the mineralization is interpreted to be linked to the evolution of the Cape Mountain biotite granite which has been determined to be 78.8 +/- 2.9 my old by the K/Ar method (Hudson and Arth, 1983, p. 769).

Economic information

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic

Comments on exploration

  • Status = Inactive

Mining district

District name Port Clarence

Comments on the production information

  • Production Notes = Six short tons of tin are reported to have been produced from the Bartels Mine in 1905 or 1906 (Heide and others, 1946; Mulligan, 1966, p. 8).

Comments on the reserve resource information

  • Reserves = Not defined but mining has been minimal.

Comments on the workings information

  • Workings / Exploration = The adits and drifts of the Bartels Mine extended up to 1,150 feet in combined length (Steidtmann and Cathcart, 1922). Five short diamond-drill holes and several dozer trenches were completed by the USBM (Heide and others, 1946). The USBM also completed detrital cassiterite mapping on slopes periperial to the mine area (Mulligan, 1966).

Reference information

Links to other databases

Agency Database name Acronym Record ID Notes
USGS Alaska Resource Data File ARDF TE009

Bibliographic references

  • Deposit

    Collier, A.J., 1904, Tin deposits of the York region, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 229, 61 p.

  • Deposit

    Knopf, Adolph, 1908, Geology of the Seward Peninsula tin deposits, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 358, 71 p.

  • Deposit

    Steidtmann, Edward, and Cathcart, S. H., 1922, Geology of the York tin deposits, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 733, 130 p.

  • Deposit

    Heide, H.E., Wright, W.S., and Sanford, R.S., 1946, Exploration of Cape Mountain lode-tin deposits, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations 3978, 16 p.

  • Deposit

    Mulligan, J.J., 1966, Tin-lode investigations, Cape Mountain area, Seward Peninsula, Alaska; with a section on petrography by W. L. Gnagy: U.S. Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations 6737, 43 p.

  • Deposit

    Cobb, E.H., and Sainsbury, C.L., 1972, Metallic mineral resource map of the Teller quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-426, 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

  • Deposit

    Sainsbury, C.L., 1972, Geologic map of the Teller quadrangle, Seward Peninsula, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Map I-685, 4 p., 1 sheet, scale 1:250,000.

  • Deposit

    Hudson, T.L., and Arth, J. G., 1983, Tin-granites of Seward Peninsula, Alaska: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 94, p. 768-790.

  • Deposit

    Cobb, E.H., 1975, Summary of references to mineral occurrences (other than mineral fuels and construction materials) in the Teller quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 75-587, 130 p.

  • Deposit

    Hudson, T.L., 1984, Tin systems of Seward Peninsula, Alaska: Anchorage, Anaconda Minerals Company internal report, 51 p. (Report held by Cook Inlet Region Inc., Anchorage, Alaska)

Comments on the references

  • Primary Reference = Heide and others, 1946; Mulligan, 1966; Hudson, 1984

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Model Name = Cassiterite-bearing veins and pods in marble, at marble/granite contacts, and in granite. Some pegmatite characteristics may be present. Generally related to tin vein model (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 15b)
Deposit Other Comments = Although scattered small grains of scheelite were identified in pyroxene-fluorite hornfels/skarn by Knopf (1908, p. 38), tungsten is generally present in only anomalous amounts. Tungsten was not a significant component of placer concentrates from Cape Creek or Goodwin Gulch.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 10-MAY-1998 Travis L. Hudson Applied Geology