A report on the exploration and survey of the Chakachamna-Stony Region of Alaska.

From foreword: This report describes the upper cretaceous floras and rocks south of the Brooks Range in Alaska.

From introduction: The history of glaciation in Alaska offers a fascinating field for study. Because of the remarkable development and easy accessibility of valley and piedmont glaciers in the coastal mountains, Alaska has long been popularly conceived as a land of ice and snow, a concept that is only slowly being corrected. To the student of glaciation, however, Alaska affords a unique opportunity to observe the formation, movement, and dissipation of the many living glaciers, to examine the results of glacial erosion on a gigantic scale, and to discover and work out the sequence of Pleistocene events as shown by the topographic forms in both glaciated and unglaciated areas and by the deposits left by ice and water during earlier stages of glaciation.

Report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Mines discussing the mine stations and safety cars used to reach miners in distress. As stated in the report, "the purpose, equipment, personnel, and construction of its safety cars" is presented. This report includes an illustration, and a map.

From abstract: The Girdwood district has been known for about 35 years to contain placer gold, but the source of the gold in veins was not discovered until about 1909. When the Alaska Railroad was completed through Girdwood it was hoped that the improved transportation facilities would enable the lode mines to operate at a profit and also to furnish tonnage to the railroad. Production from the quartz veins, however, has been negligible, although one placer mine has been operating steadily for several years.

From abstract: The Kantishna mining district is about 90 miles west of McKinley Park station on the Alaska Railroad. The part of the district covered by this report comprises an area of about 72 square miles in the form of a strip 6 miles wide and 13 miles long. The bedrock is mainly a metamorphic series of rocks which within the area has been differentiated into a quartz-muscovite schist and a calcareous faces that ranges from limestone to chlorite schist. A few small dikes of quartz porphyry and diabase intrude the schist. The general structure trends N. 700 E., and from an axis that extends from Eldorado Creek northeastward to Spruce Peak the schistosity dips to the northwest and southeast. It is along this axis that the heaviest mineralization has occurred.

From abstract: To help the mining industry of Alaska and to assist in the development of the mineral resources of the Territory have been the prime motives of the Geological Survey's investigations in Alaska during the past 35 years, in which nearly one half of the Territory has been covered by its reconnaissance and exploratory surveys. It was natural, therefore, that the Alaska Railroad, when it undertook intensive consideration of the problem of finding tonnage that would increase its revenues, should look to the Geological Survey to supply technical information as to the known mineral deposits along its route and to indicate what might be done to stimulate a larger production of minerals and induce further mining developments and prospecting that would utilize its service.

From abstract: The area in the vicinity of the West Fork of the Chulitna River, Alaska, one of those examined in 1931 in connection with the study of mineral resources in districts tributary to the Alaska Railroad, contains numerous prospects but, as yet, no productive mines. Its placer deposits are negligible but some of its lodes may prove valuable for gold and silver and perhaps also for copper and arsenic.

This report provides and in-depth description of the Moose Pass-Hope District in Alaska, including on overview of the general area, physical geology, and economic geology.

From abstract: The Mount Eielson district lies in south-central Alaska, on the north side of the Alaska Range, about 30 miles east of Mount McKinley. The most widely distributed rocks of the district include a thick series of thin-bedded limestone, calcareous shale, and graywacke of Paleozoic, probably Devonian, age. These sediments are cut by a mass of granodiorite which forms most of Mount Eielson and which was intruded probably in late Mesozoic time. The intrusive has sent a multitude of dikes and sills into the associated sediments.

"To the end of 1930 Alaska, according to the records of the Geological Survey, had produced placer gold to the value of $258,962,000 from mines widely scattered throughout its length and breadth. The distribution of the placers from which the gold was recovered has been stated in more or less detail in the annual summaries published by the Geological Survey on the mineral industry of Alaska and also in its more complete reports on many of the individual mining districts. Although these summaries and reports have furnished information regarding the larger regions, they have not always given specific details regarding the smaller districts. Furthermore, there has been no recent attempt to assemble and publish in one place the scattered statistics regarding the placer-gold production by years and by regions and districts. The purpose of the present report is to set forth in condensed but comprehensive form a summary of the placer-gold production of Alaska so far as it can be determined from the available official records."

From abstract: The Valdez Creek mining district was one of those visited in 1931 in connection with the study of the mineral resource of the region tributary to the Alaska Railroad. It is underlain by argillite, schist, tuff, tuffaceous conglomerate, limestone, and greenstone, listed in approximate stratigraphic order beginning with the youngest.

From abstract: The gold quartz veins of the Willow Creek district belong to the type of ore deposits that may be expected to continue downward for several thousand feet below the present surface. The veins occur in an essentially homogeneous quartz diorite intrusive mass, batholithic in form ; therefore, the composition of the wall rock plays practically no significant part in the distribution of gold within the veins. The veins were formed partly as fissure fillings and partly by replacement of the wall rock along fractures and of fragments of wall rock caught between the fracture walls. Structurally the deposits are essentially composite lodes, although quartz lenses of considerable size have also been formed.

From abstract: The Moose Creek area is in the western part of the Matanuska Valley, in south-central Alaska, about 165 miles by railroad north of the coast at Seward. Coal deposits in the valley have been known since the early 1890's, and there have been producing mines since 1916, but the annual production is only about 40,000 tons, or less than one-third of the total amount consumed in the Territory. Early in 1931 Congress authorized the investigation of mineral resources in areas tributary to the Alaska Railroad, which is Government owned and operated, for the purpose of stimulating development and hence increasing the traffic and revenue of the railroad. The technical work of carrying on these studies was entrusted by Col. O. F. Ohlson, general manager of the railroad, to the United States Geological Survey. One of the investigations undertaken was that of the Moose Creek area, where small coal mines are in operation. Difficulties have been encountered in these mines, owing to the faulted character of the formation, which causes unproductive work in mining and also produces a large percentage of fine coal, which is unsuitable for sale in distant markets. Field examination indicated that more favorable mining conditions …

From abstract: The Curry district lies on the south flank of the Alaska Range, on the southeast side of Mount McKinley. Most of it is west of the Alaska Railroad. The eastern portion can be easily reached from several points along the railroad route, but the western portion is much more difficult of access, owing to the numerous glacial streams and the rugged topography. The relief of the area is great, the elevation ranging from 500 feet along the Chulitna River to 20,300 feet at Mount McKinley. The Chulitna River, a tributary of the Susitna River, drains the larger part of the area described. It flows in a broad valley in the eastern part of the district, and here the maximum relief is about 3,000 feet. The western part of the district is very rugged, with numerous peaks over 6,000 feet in elevation which have sheer slopes and almost unscalable pinnacles. Winding down through this maze of rugged mountains are four major valley glaciers-Eldridge, Buckskin, Ruth, and Tokichitna-and many tributary and smaller glaciers. Practically the entire district, with the exception of the higher peaks and ridges, has been glaciated. Timber grows along the main streams and extends to an elevation …

Abstract: During the spring of 1932 an opportunity was offered by the United States Navy for a geologist to accompany an expedition organized to make a reconnaissance of the western part of Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. This expedition visited several localities the geology of which was little known. It was found, as had already been expected, that the islands west of Unimak Pass are composed mainly of basic volcanic lavas and fragmental materials, into which have later been injected dikes, sills, and considerable masses of intrusive rocks, some of which are of acidic types and of granitic texture. These westward islands are bordered both to the north and south by depressions 2,000 fathoms or more in depth, and the islands have apparently been built up from that depth by the ejection and extrusion of volcanic materials since early Tertiary time. No rocks of proved pre-Tertiary age were seen, and the only sedimentary materials present may well have been derived from the erosion of the volcanic islands after they were built up above sea level. On the Alaska Peninsula pre-Tertiary sediments through which the volcanic materials broke to the surface are abundantly present. There is evidence that all the …

From abstract: The report is limited to the geology of lode deposits in the northwestern part of the Boise Basin which are in or near mines that were in operation at the time of visit, in 1930. Owing to the recent inactivity of the formerly rich placer (leposits, there is nothing essential regarding them to add to Lindgren's report published in 1898. The area studied is underlain by granitic rock of the Idaho batholith, which is cut by dikes of Miocene(?) age. These dikes are dacite porphyry (intruded early) ; rhyolite porphyry, granophyre porphyry, and granite porphyry (closely related in character and age) ; and several basic varieties (of which some, at least, are of relatively late origin). Diorite porphyry dikes, of undetermined age but probably older than all of those named above, are also present.

From introduction: Two field parties, one topographic, the other geologic, were engaged in making surveys in the section of the Alaska Range between the Nabesna and Big Tok Rivers in 1934. Most of the area surveyed was on the northeast side of the range, within a drainage area that is tributary to the Nabesna and Tanana Rivers, but it also included a small part of the Copper River Basin.

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "Famed flier Wiley Post with Kodiak bear he killed during 1934 Alaskan hunt."

Photograph used for a newspaper owned by the Oklahoma Publishing Company. Caption: "Wiley Post, right, and his group on an Alaskan bear hunt, near Yakutat Bay."

From introduction: The purpose of this paper is to describe the geology and mineral resources of a part of the Copper River Basin between the Richardson Highway and the valley of the Klutina River, together with small areas east of the highway and west of the river. For convenience in reference this area is called the Tonsina district, as the Tonsina River and Tonsina Lake are conspicuous local geographic features, and the Tonsina Road House, on the highway at the crossing of the river, is one of the oldest and best-known settlements in the Copper River Basin.

Photograph of Will Rogers in the plane door talking to Wiley Post, Juneau, AK. Photo by Ordway, Juneau, AK, c.1935.

From introduction: The district described in this report is a triangular area covering about 300 square miles in the southwestern part of the Talkeetna Mountains. The Kashwitna River forms the northern boundary, the Susitna Valley flats the western, and the Willow Creek gold district, which is in the extreme southwestern part of the Talkeetna Mountains, the southern. As the area examined is not a distinct geographic unit, its boundaries being arbitrarily chosen and set only by the limitation of time spent in the field, a description of its geography applies to practically the entire western and southern portions of the Talkeetna Mountains, of which it is a part.

Brief summary of the physical characteristics, general habits, breeding habits, food habits, migratory habits, and habitat of the Alaska-Yukon caribou.