TERTIARY CHANNELS

by William B. Clark

FOSSIL RIVER BEDS,

ONCE

APART FOR GOLD, NOW

WORKED FOR SAND AND

RIPPED

GRAVEL

The Tertiary channel deposits of the Sierra Nevada

that have yielded vast amounts of gold in the past
now yield sand and gravel which are sources of highquality aggregate .. Although mining for construction
materials is underway, the aggregate potential of the
channel deposits, is far from realized. The channel
deposits are also useful as a source of silica which
is contained in quartzitic sands and gravels.
Other mineral commodities that have been recovered
are silver , platinum, clay, grinding pebbles, black
sand, and petrified wood. In addition, a number of
small diamonds have been found in several of the
deposits.
As California's population continues to increase,
the value of the Tertiary channel deposits as significant sources of raw material will likewise increase. If economic conditions become favorable for
gold mining again, the deeply buried but undeveloped
portions of these deposits may be the sources of
large amounts of gold. A few have been worked for
gold by hydraulicking on a small scale in recent
years, and attempts are being made to work others
with draglines or power shovels and stationary
washing plants.

reservoirs, ditches, flumes, pipelines, and tunnels

were constructed to supply the vast amounts of water
required for these operations.
As more and more material was excavated, the
hydraulic pits became enormous. The tailings from
these operations were allowed to flow into the rivers,
which was alleged to cause flooding and silting of
farmlands, eventually leading to litigation between
the farmers who lived downstream and the miners. In
a famous court case in 1884 (Woodruff v s. North
Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company (16 Fed. Rep . 25),
Judge Lorenzo Sawyer issued an InJunction prohibiting the company from dumping debris into the
Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and their tributaries. Injunctions against other mines soon followed.
Some mines constructed tailings dams or reservoirs
and continued to operate, but on a smaller scale.
For a few years drift mining partly made up for
the loss of production of placer gold from the hydraulic
mines. After 1900 floating bucket-line dredges accounted for most of the placer gold produced in the
state. Meanwhile many of the old hydraulic mines
were abandoned. Large trees have since grown in the
old pits. A few rusty pipes, an occasional monitor,
and the remains of old sluice boxes are all the equipment that remains. The few hydraulic mines that have
operated recently are licensed by the California
Debris Commission of the U.S. Corps of Engineers
in Sacramento. Most of the old drift mines also are
shut down, and many have caved, although a few buildings and other structures remain at some of them.

HISTORY

The chief period of gold production from the

Tertiary channel deposits was from about 1855 until
1884. Much of the output was obtained by hydraulic
mining, which was first done in the state in 1852
near Nevada City and at Yankee J ims in Placer
County.
Hydraulicking consists of directing a jet of water
under high pressure through a nozzle known as a
"monitor" or "giant" against a bank to disintegrate
it so as to wash the gravel through sluices. Hydraulic
mining was a major industry in California in those
years, and towns such as Cherokee Flat, La Porte,
Howland Flat, North Bloomfield, Washington, Iowa
Hill, Dutch Flat, Foresthill, and Michigan Bluff were
major centers of population. Extensive systems of

With the explosive growth of California's population in recent years and the resulting increase in all
types of construction, some of the more accessible
Tertiary channel deposits have become valuable
sources of aggregate material. For example, large
amounts of hydraulic mine tailings derived from the
You Bet and Dutch Flat deposits were used in the
construction of the U.S. Highway 40 freeway in
Placer County, tailings from the Cherokee mine were

39

MAP OF THE
SIERRA NEVADA
SHOWING
TERTIARY CHANNELS AND
PRINCIPAL GOLD-BEARING DEPOSITS

No.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38

Name
Altaville
American H i ll
Bangor
Blue Tent
Brandy City
Campo Seco
Campton vi lie
Canada Hi II
Cherokee
Chinese Camp
Columbia
Cottage Springs
Damascus
Deadwood
Duncan Peak
Dutch FIat
Eureka
Fairplay
Fiddletown
Forest
Foresth iII
French Corral
Gibsonville
Gold Run
Gravel Range
Howland Flat
Hunt's Hill
Indian Diggings
Indian Hill
Iowa Hill
Irish Hill
Jackson
Jenny Lind
Kentucky Flat
La Porte
Last Chance
Lost Camp
Lowell Hill

County

No .

39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71

Co laveras
Sierra
Butte
Nevada
Sierra
Calaveras
Yuba
Placer
Butte
Tuolumne
Tuolumne
Calaveras
Placer
Placer
Placer
P Iacer
Sierra
El Dorado
Amador
Sierra
P Iacer
Nevada
Sierra
Placer
Tuolumne
Sierra
Nevada
E I Dorado
Sierra
Placer
Amador
Amador
Calaveras
E I Dorado
Plumas
Placer
Placer
Nevada

72

73
74
75
76

40

Name
Magalia
Meadow Valley
Michjgan Bar
Michigan Bluff
Minnesota
Mokelumne Hill
Moore's Flat
Mooreville Ridge
Morristown
Mountain Ranch
Newtown
North Bloomfield
North Columbia
North San Juan
Omega
Pacific
Pilot Hill
Placervi lie
Poker FIat
Port Wine
Poverty Hill
Pr ide
Quaker Hill
Railroad Flat
Ralston Divide
Rough-and-Ready
San Andreas
Saw pit FIat
Scott's FIat
Smarts vi lie
Smith Station
Table Mount a in
Todd Valley
Vallecito
Volcano
Volcanovi lie
Yankee Jims
You Bet

County
Butte
Pl umas
Sacramento
Placer
Sierra
Calaveras
Ne vada
Pl umas
Sierra
Calaveras
E I Dorado
Ne vada
Ne vada
Ne vada
Nevada
E I Dorado
El Dorado
E I Dorado
Sierra
Sierra
Sierra
Sierra
Nevada
Calaveras
Placer
Ne vada
Calaveras
Plumas
Ne vada
Yu ba
Tu o lumne
Tu o lumne
Placer
Calaveras-"
Amador
El Dorado
Placer
Nevada

<"?
p

EXPLANATION

40
......
0 QUINCY

TERTIARY CHANNEL

,.--- ___ ...

PORTOLA

.....

JNTERVOLCANJC
TERTIARY CHANNEL

__.::....-- - DREDGE FIELD

10

15

20 25

30

SCALE IN MILES
AFTER LINDGREN, 1911
AND JENKINS, 1935

''
MARKLEEVILLE

41

42

Mineral Information Service

used in the rerouting of the Feather River Highway in

Butte County, and gravels from Placerville and Diamond Springs have been used both in local construction and in the U .S. Highway 50 freeway. Some of the
old reservoir and ditch systems are now parts of
hydro-electric ,and irrigation systems.
CHANNEL DEPOSITS

occurs at or near bedrock in the oldest de posits .

Natural riffles in the bedrock such as crevices , joints ,
and potholes hold much of the gold . Depos its that
overlie limestone have been especially rich because
the deep potholes in the limestone have been excellent gold traps. Such deposits are at Columbia, Volcano, Fairplay, and Indian Diggings.
Some of
these early gravels are well cemented with a sandy
matrix.

Tertiary channel deposits are alluvial placers that

were deposited by ancient stream channels during the
Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene epochs.
Those of Eocene age are the most extensive and
have yielded by far the largest amounts of gold, as
well as the highest proportion of quartzitic gravels
and sands. The channels had their origin during
Cretaceous time when the streams flowed across
subdued topography into a shallow sea that lay to the
west. During Eocene time the climate was subtropical which permitted deep weathering of the bedrock. When the Tertiary Sierra Nevada uplift began
the streams became loaded with quartz pebbles and
quartzitic sand along with the gold that had been released by erosion of the gold-quartz veins. The finer
clay particles were deposited farther west, the remnants of which are at such places as Lincoln and
lone.

When the cemented gravels were being concentrated in mining operations, it was sometime s nece s sary to send them through crushers and stamp mills.
In a few cases such as at Cherokee or at a few of the
mines at Iowa Hill, there are greenstone gravels
near bedrock which have yielded significant quantities of gold.
Covering the deep gravels and in plac e s attaining
thickness of as much as 300 feet are th e bench
gravels. In places the bench gravels have spread out
to widths of one or two miles. These grave ls also
contain much quartz, but the fragments are finer and
there is more interstratified fine sediment including
sand and "pipe" clay. Most of the bench gravels do
contain gold, but it is not as abundant as in the deep
gravels. In places the early gravels are overlain by
intervolcanic gravels.
Some of these older gravels
are cut by younger gravel channels.

Explosive volcanic activity which began at least

as early as Oligocene time and continued through the
Miocene epoch resulted in rhyolite ash falls that
dammed up the rivers and formed numerous small
lakes. The rhyolite ash deposited in these lakes was
altered to what is commonly known in the mining
districts as "pipe" clay or "chalk". Later, in
Pliocene time, much more violent volcanic activity
resulted in the deposition of vast amounts of andeside detritus and mud flows. This forced the stre ams
into new channels- essentially those that they occupy today. The se later Tertiary channels 1are known
as intervolcanic channels , those of the rhyolitic
epoch commonly being referred to as "interrhyolitic
gravels" and those of the andesitic epoch as "interandesitic gravels". The intervolcanic gravels contain less quartz than the Eocene gravels and nearly
always are leaner in gold.
The oldest channel gravels consist of pebbles,
cobbl es, and boulders of white milky quartz and intrusive and metamorphic rocks. Most of the quartz
fragments are well rounded and unless decomposed
have a smooth and polished surface. These gravels
often are referred to as "deep" or "blue" gravels
and occur in the deepest part of the trough-like depressions in the deposits. The highest proportion of gold

At Mokelumne Hill there is a complex s eries of

eight distinct channels that range from early Eocene
to late Pliocene in age, while at Last Chance there
are three channels, the deepest of which is the
youngest. The percentage of quartz present in the
Tertiary channels varies from one deposit to another.
The highest proportion of quartz appears to be in the
You Bet and Mokelumne Hilldistricts;but quartz is also
very abundant in the La Porte, Port Wine, Eureka ,
Indian Hill, North Bloomfield, Dutch Flat, a nd Iowa
Hill districts . The gravels in places are ove rlain by
thick beds of volcanic rocks, especially in the center of the long west-southwest trending ridges or
"divides". Andesite of Pliocene age is the principal volcanic rock with smaller amounts of Miocene
rhyolite. At Oroville Table Mountain the gravels are
overlain by Pliocene basalt, while those underlying
Tuolumne Table Mountain are capped by P liocene
latite. Where the volcanic capping was too thick for
hydraulicking, the gravels were mined by underground
drift mines.
At some districts such as Magalia, Dama scus, or
Altaville, most of the output was from drift mines.
At others such as Michigan Bluff, Foresthill, or Iowa
Hill the output was from both hydrauli c a nd drift
mines , and some individual mines were worked both

March 1965

43

GENERAL VIEW OF MALAKOFF DIGGINGS

photo by C.E. WATKINS

by drifting and hydraulicking.

The gold particles range from flour size to coarse
nuggets weighing more than 100 ounces, but the most
common size is fine to medium fine. The average
grain size is about that of a mustard seed; flour gold
is not abundant in the Sierra Nevada Tertiary channels. Most of the grains are flat, a re suit of the
pounding of the cobbles in the gravel. Extremely
coarse gold with individual nuggets weighing up to
several hundred ounces have been recovered , from
some deposits, the most notable being at Forest and
Minnesota in Sierra County; Magalia, Butte County;
Remington Hill and Lowell Hill in Nevada County ;
Damascus, Iowa Hill, Michigan Bluff, and Foresthill
in Placer County; and Columbia in Tuolumne County.
The fineness of the gold ranges from 840 to more
than 950. Placer gold from Vallecito has been re-

courtesy of THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

ported to have been as high as 987 in fineness. The

ld is always associated with black sands that are
mposed chiefly of magnetite with smaller amounts
ilmenite, zircon, garnet, and occasionally pyrite.
lso present are small grayish-white grains and
nuggets of platinu.m., usually in very small amounts.
- small diamonds have been recovered from a few o f
the Tertiary channel deposits, the principal source
having been the Cherokee hydraulic mine in Butte
County. More than 300 diamonds have been ltak
from this mine, principally during the 1850s, 1860s,
and 1870s. A few of the stones were up to two carats
in weight and of good quality, but most were small
with a pale yellow tinge. The largest diamond recorded
from the state weighed
carats and was taken from
the French Corral mine in Nevada County prior to
1867. Small diamonds also were found at Volcano and

44

Mineral Information Service

Fiddletown, Amador County; Foresthill, Placer County;

Smith's Flat near Placerville, ElDorado County;
and Sawpit Flat, Plumas County.
DISTRIBUTION OF CHANNELS

The Tertiary channel deposits extend from the

northern end of the Sierra Nevada in Butte and Plumas
Counties to Tuolumne County on the south and from
the lower western foothills nearly to the crest of the
range. The most numerous and extensive deposits are
located along the courses of the Tertiary Yuba and
American Rivers, but major ones also occur along the
Tertiary Mokelumne, Calaveras, and Tuolumne Rivers ,
and in a number of isolated channels such as Magalia,
Cherokee, Mooreville Ridge, and Meadow Valley. The
most productive deposits have been as follows:
(1) The Magalia channel in Butte County which is of
limited extent, but which contains a number of highly
productive drift mines; (2) Cherokee, Butte County
which has an estimated output of nearly $13,000,000;
(3) The extensive delta gravels at Bangor, Butte
County; (4)The various branches of the Tertiary Yuba
River in Plumas, Sierra, ,Nevada, and Butte Counties.
These include the "diggings" at Sawpit Flat and La
Porte in Plumas County the latter of which has yielded
more than $60,000,000; Gibsonville, Poverty Hill,
Eureka, Howland Flat, which has yielded more than
$14,000,000, Poker Flat, Port Wine, Brandy City,
Forest, and Minnesota, Sierra County; Smartsville,
which has an output of more than $13,000,000 in
gold, and Camptonville, Yuba County; and Washington,
Moore's Flat, North Bloomfield, North Columbia,
North San Juan, French Corral, You Bet, Quaker Hill,
Lowell Hill, and Scott' s Flat, all in Nevada County;
(5) The Tertiary American river in Placer and El
Dorado Counties, of which the Dutch Flat, Gold Run,
Iowa Hill, Foresthill, Last Chance, Damascus,
Michigan Bluff, Volcanoville, and Placerville districts have been the richest. Placerville and Foresthill each have yielded more than $25,000,000 in placer
gold and Iowa Hill more than $20,000,000 mostly from
Tertiary channel deposits; (6) Branches of the Tertiary Mokelumne River of which the richest portions
were Fairplay and Indian Diggings in ElDorado County
and Fiddletown and Volcano in Amador County; (7)
The Tertiary Calaveras River in Calaveras County
where the most productive deposits were at Mokelumne
Hill, Altaville, and Vallecito; and (8) The Tertiary
Tuolumne River in Tuolumne County where productive
deposits were at Chinese Camp and in the Gravel
Range. In addition the famous Columbia "diggings"
in this county are located near the intervolcanic

Cataract channel. Columbia, "gem of the southern

mines", yielded more than $87,000,000 be twe e n 1850
and 1875. It lies in a preserved Tertiary valley that
is underlain chiefly by crystalline limestone. The
limestone has numerous deep potholes and cavities
which contained enormously rich gravels. The gravels
were hoisted from the potholes and washed through
long toms and sluices.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Averill, Charles V., and others, 1946, Placer mining for
gold in California: California Division of Mines Bulletin
135, 377 pp.
Bowie, A.J., Jr., 1900, A practical treatise on hydraulic mining in California, D. Van Nostra nd Company,
New Y ark, 313 pp.
Chandra, Deb K., 1961, Geology and mineral deposits
of the Colfax and Foresthill quadrangles, California; California Division of Mines and Geology Specia l Report 67,
50 pp.
Clark, William B., 1957, Gold: California Division of
Mines Bulletin 176, pp. 215-226.
Clark, William B., and Lydon, Philip A., 1962, Mines
and mineral resources of Calaveras County- Placer gold:
California Division of Mines and Geology Cou nty Report 2,
pp. 76-93.
Gilbert, Grove Karl, 1917, Hydraulic mining debris in
the Sierra Nevada: U.S. Geological Survey Professional
Paper 105, 154 pp.
Haley, Charles S., 1923, Gold placers of California:
California Mining Bureau Bulletin 92, 167 pp.
Hammond, John Hays, 1890, The auriferous gravels. of
California: California Mining Bureau Report 9, pp. 105138.
Hanks, Henry G., 1882, Placer, hydraulic, and drift
mining: California Mining Bureau Report 2, pp . 28 -192.
Jarman, Arthur, 1927, Report of the Hydraulic Mining
Commission upon the feasibility of the resumption of
hydraulic mining in California: California Mining Bureau
Report 23, pp. 44-116.
Jenkins, Olaf P., 1935, New techn iques applicable to
the study of placers : California Division of Mines Report
31, pp. 143-210.
Jenkins, Olaf P., and others, 1948, Geologic guidebook
along Highway 49- Sierran gold belt- the Mother Lode
country: California Division of Mines Bulletin 141, 164 pp.
/ Lindgren, Waldemar, 1900, Colfax folio, Cal ifornia:
U.S. Geological Survey Geologic
Atlas of the United
States, folio 66, 10 pp.
Lindgren, Waldemar, 1911, Tertiary gravels of the
Sierra Nevada of California : U.S. Geological Survey
Professional Paper 73, 226 pp.
Logan, Clarence A., 1936, Gold mines of Placer County:
California Division of Mines Report 32, PP 7-96.
Turner, Henry W., 1897, Downieville folio, California:
U.S. Geological Survey Geologic
Atlas of the United
States, folio 37, 8 pp.
Whitney, Josiah D., 1879, The auriferous gravels of
the Sierra Nevada: Memoir Museum of Compara t ive Zoology,
Harvard College, volume 6, 569 pp.

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