Red Devil District
The Red Devil District is well known for its mercury production, about 40,000 flasks, produced primarily from the Red Devil Mine between 1933 and 1963. At Red Devil, the westerly-flowing Kuskokwim River bisects the Kuskokwim Mountains, exposing several mercury occurrences and sites of small-scale past production including the Willis, Ammiline, Alice and Bessie, Barometer, Vermillion and Mercury prospects. The high cost of producing mercury in remote areas made the Kuskokwim area mine economic only during wartime periods when military production drove up the commodity price. Synthetic, environmentally safer materials have now largely replaced mercury as an industrial material.
 Red Devil District Although mercury is no longer an economic commodity in western Alaska, prospects where gold is variably associated with arsenic, antimony and mercury in siliceous igneous rocks (rhyolite to rhyodacite) exist at numerous locations in the Red Devil District. These include Juninggulra Mountain, Decourcy Mountain, Georgetown, Kolmakof, Fairview, Red Mountain, Barometer, Rhyolite Mountain, New York Creek and others. Most of these occurrences are too small to be considered economic but large areas underlain by rhyolite flow domes and dikes remain unexplored.
Calista determined the Red Devil District’s gold potential in the 1980’s and signed an exploration lease with BHP Minerals in 1988. BHP conducted exploration for gold in the Red Devil district, identifying several areas of anomalous arsenic and gold in soils at several mercury prospects. BHP concluded that the Red Devil-Barometer area is prospective for a significant concealed gold resource and sited three drill holes to test this model at Red Devil, but BHP withdrew from Alaska without drilling the property.
Calista continues to market the Red Devil District for its gold potential and seeks an industry partner to complete the test drilling outlined by BHP. Gold and silver bearing veins at Red Mountain 12 miles southeast of Red Devil require additional work to expand the area of known mineralization.
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