Platinum (1.67g)

specimen number:
2262221

location:
Fox Gulch, Salmon River, Goodnews Bay, Alaska, USA

description:
A metallic platinum nugget weighing 1.67 g. In great condition, the specimen comes with a previous data card as shown at the end of the video and dates to the early 1960s.

Fox Gulch, a prominent tributary of the Salmon River near Platinum on the southern Seward Peninsula of Alaska, is a legendary historic locality for placer platinum-group metal nuggets. Geologically, these heavy metallic nuggets were released through the intense weathering and erosion of the Goodnews Bay Ultramafic Complex, a specialized dunite-rich zoned intrusion of late Mesozoic age. Over millennia, hydraulic action concentrated the dense native platinum, isoferroplatinum, and associated osmium-iridium alloys into rich pay-streaks within the shallow stream gravels and bedrock depressions of the gulch. Historically, the deposit was discovered in 1926 by native prospectors Walter Smith and Henry Wuya, who noticed unusual heavy gray metallic grains in their gold pans. This find sparked an immediate staking rush, leading to intensive hand-mining and small-scale sluicing operations in Fox Gulch during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Large-scale corporate quarrying and mechanized bucket-line dredging by the Goodnews Bay Mining Company took over the broader Salmon River drainage by 1937, operating systematically until 1975 and establishing the region as the primary domestic source of platinum in the United States. Through 2026, the area remains an important historical reference point for mineralogists, with original nuggets from Fox Gulch highly valued by collectors for their smooth, water-worn habits and rare alloy chemistry.

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