Due to the depletion of traditional economic gold placer deposits in unglaciated areas of the Yukon, the study of the relationship of placer gravels to overlying glacial sediments in ice covered regions is important to future exploration activities. The livingstone Creek area in south central Yukon has supported placer mining operations for over 90 years. Present activity is centred on gold-bearing gravels buried by thick Pleistocene glacial deposits. The placer gravels are associated with coarse interglacial stream and gulch deposits and they are overlain by fine-grained, proximal, glaciolacustrine sediments.
During the last glaciation, damming of gold-bearing, high gradient interglacial tributary stream channels by main valley ice caused rapid environmental changes. Depositional processes dominated over erosion in the ice-marginal lakes, and thick sequences of fine-grained suspension deposits, debris flow sediments, and deltaic sands and gravels accumulated. In addition, when glaciers expanded and overrode the area, these thick deposits protected the underlying placer gravels from subglacial erosion and dilution. Subglacial tills were probably deposited by lodgement, meltout and flow. During deglaciation, ice-marginal sedimentation again dominated. Post-glacial streams later cut through the glacial sediments and re-exposed the gold-bearing gravels.
Stratigraphic, sedimentologic and geomorphic evidence from the Livingstone Creek area suggests that small tributary valleys, oriented transverse to the former direction of ice flow in the adjacent main valleys would make good exploration targets in regions of new placer interest.
