Brooks Mountain facts for kids

Brooks Mountain is a tall mountain in Alaska, USA. It's the highest point in the York Mountains range. You can find it on the Seward Peninsula. The mountain stands about 2,918 feet (889 meters) high. It is located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Cape Prince of Wales. This mountain is known for having deposits of tin ore. A special type of uranium called zeunerite has also been found here.

Where is Brooks Mountain?

Brooks Mountain is part of the York Mountain Range. It is the highest peak in this range. The York Mountains act like a natural wall. They separate rivers that flow north into the Arctic Ocean from streams that flow south into the Bering Sea.

Several important rivers start from Brooks Mountain. These include the Mint River, York Creek, and Crystal River. York Creek joins the Pinauk River. Crystal River flows into the Lost River.

You can reach the mountain in a few ways. One way is by a road starting from the beach, about 11 miles (18 kilometers) north of the Lost River's mouth. Another way is from Port Clarence. This route follows a road along the Don River. There are also small airstrips nearby. One is above Crystal Creek, and two more are near the mouth of the Lost River.

What is Brooks Mountain Made Of?

Scientists have been studying the rocks of Brooks Mountain since 1902. The mountain is made of a mix of igneous and sedimentary rocks. Igneous rocks form from cooled lava, while sedimentary rocks form from layers of sediment.

You can find granite in some parts of the mountain. There are also different types of dykes, which are like walls of rock that cut through other rock layers. Some of the granite on the mountain's southwest side contains zeunerite, a form of uranium.

The rocks here are very old. Some parts formed during the Mesozoic Era (the age of dinosaurs). Other parts, like black slate, are even older. They date back to the Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian ages. There are also limestone formations from the Fort Clarence Limestone series. These are from the Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian periods.

Geological maps show that many of the exposed rocks are altered limestones and black slates. These sedimentary rocks are cut through by many dykes of granite and rhyolite. You can also find minerals like tourmaline and garnet here. About 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) south of Brooks Mountain, in places like Tin Creek, there are tin ore deposits. These are found within rocks containing tourmaline and garnet.

Uranium on the Mountain

Since the 1950s, scientists have used special tools to study the rocks for uranium. They found that Brooks Mountain has high-grade uranium. Detailed studies were done in 1951.

Uranium was mainly found as zeunerite in three different spots. Other types of rocks also showed some level of radioactivity.

• This article incorporates text from a work in the public domain: A. J. Collier's "The Tin Deposits of the York Region, Alaska" (1904)