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This report documents the state of the Placer Mining Industry in the Yukon Territory for the 1993 and 1994 mining seasons. This report differs from previous volumes in that the placer mining inspection reports are organized by drainage basin. The majority of this volume consists of detailed descriptions of placer operations visited by the staff of the Placer Mining Section of the Mineral Development Division, Northern Affairs Program, Yukon Region. Also included is information that may be useful to readers who are interested in searching for and developing placer properties in the Yukon Territory. This volume contains four papers of general interest: "Prehistoric gold" describes the discovery of an extinct Ice Age horse; "Water" is a brief account that tells of the difficulties, historically, in obtaining water for placer mining; "Oldest valid Yukon placer claims" describes claims kept in good standing for the greatest length of time; and "The early development of placer mining in the Yukon 1873-1896" is a historical overview of the development of placer mining in the Yukon.

The core of Glenlyon and northeastern Carmacks map areas is underlain by a northwest-trending belt of metasedimentary, metavolcanic and (meta)plutonic rocks of the Yukon-Tanana Terrane. It includes two successions of Carboniferous arc volcanic rocks, associated plutonic suites of Mississippian age, Devonian-Mississippian metaclastic rocks, and their basement complex. To the southwest, Yukon-Tanana Terrane is juxtaposed with the Semenof block a belt of mafic metavolcanic rocks of uncertain terrane affinity along the Needlerock and Big Salmon faults. To the northeast, the Tummel fault zone delineates the contact between Yukon-Tanana and Cassiar terranes. The narrow belt of chert, argillite and greenstone which occurs within the Tummel fault zone probably correlates with the Slide Mountain Terrane. The area is intruded by Early Jurassic and Cretaceous plutons and is dissected by a series of late faults, which results in approximately 56 km of dextral offset of the Yukon-Tanana Terrane.

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A mineral assessment of the Tombstone study area was undertaken by the Department of Economic Development in the summer of 1998 at the request of the Department of Renewable Resources. The purpose of the mineral assessment was to produce a mineral potential map, which was to be used to assist with the finalization of the boundaries of the Tombstone Territorial Park. Following an initial compilation, a field program was designed to document known mineral occurrences, test and improve the existing regional mapping, investigate geochemical anomalies, characterize favourable environments for mineralization, sample for lithogeochemistry, and prospect for mineralization. A field program resulted in the discovery of several new mineral occurrences, as well as the discovery of previously unmapped geological formations. Fieldwork was followed by a compilation phase that integrated the new information to the existing geoscientific data. The geology of the study area was subdivided into thirteen geological tracts. A panel of five industry and government experts, familiar with the geology, mineral occurrences and mineral deposit types to be found in the area, was convened in June 1999. Based on the final compilation and their expertise, they produced a relative ranking of all the tracts according to their potential to host mineral deposits, from highest potential to lowest. The highest-ranking tracts are those that include, or are near the Cretaceous intrusions (Tombstone, Mount Brenner and smaller intrusions) and have strong potential for intrusion-hosted (Fort Knox-type, porphyry uranium, skarn) and intrusion-related (skarns, veins, replacement) mineralization. Other tracts demonstrate potential for Wernecke Breccia, shale-hosted nickel sulphide, ultramafic-hosted nickel and listwaenite, Carlin-type, Mississippi Valley-type or replacement lead-zinc, as well as volcanogenic mineralization. A final boundary was adopted in December 2000; it includes land outside of the original study area. This final boundary therefore includes areas that were not assessed in this study. All our wildlife sightings were documented and were included in the subsequent wildlife survey.

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