The Pogo mine is a

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

mine in the state of

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

. By 31 December 2017 Pogo had produced 3.6 million ounces of gold at a grade of 13.6 g/t. Annual production for 2020 was 205,878 ounces. At 31 December 2019 the mine had Proven and Probable Reserves of 1.5 million ounces of gold at a grade of 7.5 g/t (

JORC There are several classification systems for the economic evaluation of mineral deposits worldwide. The most commonly used schemes base on the International Reporting Template, developed by the CRIRSCO - Committee for Mineral Reserves International ...

). It is located northeast of Delta Junction and east of Fairbanks. Northern Star Resources Ltd announced in May 2020 that it had entered into an agreement with the Japan based Sumitomo Metal Mining Co and Sumitomo Corp to acquire the Pogo Gold mine.

Orebody and mining method

The orebody consists of numerous highly irregular quartz veins, ranging in thickness from with being typical, and ranging in dip from horizontal to vertical with 30-45 degrees being normal. A complex system of faulting offsets the veins both parallel and perpendicular to the strike, resulting in a "chopped-up" orebody. Until 2019 the mine utilized drift-and-fill and overhand cut-and-fill mining methods when, under new owner

Northern Star Resources Northern Star Resources is an Australian gold mining company with operations in Western Australia, Northern Territory and Alaska. History Northern Star Resources (NSR) was founded in December 2003 to search for and develop ore deposits in the E ...

, the mining method was changed to longhole stoping. Access to the orebody is via decline and spiral ramp. After blasting, ore is trucked to the central underground "ore bin", where it is then fed to a conveyor that takes it out of the mine directly to the mill. Typical daily production is about 2,500 tons of ore yielding approximately 1,000 troy ounces of gold. Pogo uses a paste backfill system, where 20% of the mine's tailings from which gold has been extracted are mixed with cement and then pumped back underground to support subsequent further excavation. This has the additional environmental benefit of reducing the amount of tailings that need to be stored on surface, minimizing the footprint of the mine's dry-stack tailings storage facility.

Moose incident

On October 5, 2004, during construction of the mine, a large

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...

with 60-inch (1.5 m) antlers got entangled in newly laid power cables and inadvertently lifted into the air as the cables were tensioned. After retrieval, the moose was in distress and was shot.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pogo Mine 2006 establishments in Alaska Gold mines in the United States Mines in Alaska Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, Alaska Tanana Athabaskans