Chapter 37: Giant Placers of the Upper Kolyma Gold Fields, Yana-Kolyma Province, Russian Northeast

Abstract

The Upper Kolyma gold placers of northeastern Russia produced 2,700 metric tons (t) Au. Approximately 40% of this gold was extracted from just five placers, Chai-Yuria, Berelekh, Maldyak, Malyi At-Yuryakh, and Omchak, and their immediate tributaries. The placers were derived from Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous lode deposits, formed during sinistral translation subsequent to the Kolyma-Omolon superterrane accretion to the Verkhoyansk passive margin of the Siberian craton. The metallogenic events produced either abundant and widespread small quartz veins or more localized large to superlarge quartz stockworks and disseminated gold deposits. These orogenic gold deposits acted as a principal hard-rock source during formation of the gold placers, beginning in the Late Cretaceous but most importantly during the Cenozoic. Tectonic, geomorphologic, and climatic factors at a triple junction of the North American, Eurasian, and Okhotsk lithospheric plates provided the ultimate controls on placer formation.