Alaska, USA.

The Banner Creek Placer Gold Property consists of four State of Alaska mining claims (totaling 280 acres) located in the Richardson Mining District, Alaska. The property is located 70 miles southeast of Fairbanks, just north of the Richardson Highway, and has good access via a 3.5 mile gravel road. The property consists of “Banner” claims 1-4 (ADL’s 605561-605564), located in Sec’s 10 and 15, T7S, R7E, Fairbanks Meridian; all claims are in good standing with no encumbrances. The claims are un-tested, except for the extreme northernmost portion of Banner #1, which was mined in the late 1980’s (Figure 1). USGS publications from the early 1900’s document small-scale sluice operations on Democrat Pup (just northwest of the property), as well as on Banner Creek and Buckeye Creek, from about 1905-1910.

Placer gold in the area is believed to have multiple sources, but is most often spatially associated with felsic porphyry dikes. The May’s Pit and Camp Pit residual placer gold deposits are situated on felsic porphyry dikes similar to that which hosts gold mineralization at the Democrat Lode Gold Mine, located approximately 0.5 mi northwest of the Banner Creek Placer Gold Property. Several of these dike rocks occur along a northwest-trending structural feature known as the Richardson Lineament, which transects the northern portion of the Banner Creek Placer Gold Property. At the Democrat Lode Gold Mine, gold mineralization is largely restricted to a highly silicified quartz-feldspar porphyry dike. Visible native gold occurs in quartz veins containing trace amounts of arsenopyrite and pyrite. Gold-bearing quartz veins locally occur in the gneiss and schist wall rocks adjacent to the dike. Gold mineralization resulted from hydrothermal alteration and quartz veining associated with the waning stages of intrusion, at approximately 90 ma. The “Wide Zone” soil anomaly, located just southwest of the Banner Creek Placer Gold Property, was identified by soil samples containing elevated arsenic, lead, antimony, tungsten and bismuth values, and sporadically anomalous La, Ce, Th, U, Nb and Zr, all characteristic of dike-hosted gold mineralization in the area. Quartz-feldspar porphyry dikes have been mapped in trenches near the northwest portion of the prospect. The anomaly is spatially associated with the Richardson Lineament, and is interpreted to have good potential for gold mineralization similar that seen at the Democrat Lode Gold Mine.

Several creeks in the district have been mined for placer gold; total placer production for the district is estimated at 105,000 oz gold and 24,000 oz silver. Residual placer gold deposits in this area include May’s Pit, located approximately 2 miles southeast of the Banner Creek Placer Gold Property, and Camp Pit, located approximately 0.75 miles northwest of the property (both currently inactive). During 1979-81, Polar Mining recovered 8,000 oz of raw gold from May’s Pit. Like most of the placer gold in the Banner Creek drainage basin, residual gold from May’s Pit is relatively fine-grained and unworn; the largest nugget recovered was 1.5 oz. Production from the Camp Pit deposit is not known, however, the deposit was mined steadily for over ten years. Due to lack of water, pay gravel from both deposits was transported to nearby creeks for processing. The average gold fineness for Banner Creek has been estimated at 737. Both placer and lode gold occurrences are characterized by highly anomalous silver, which has implications for the origin of gold lodes in the area.

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