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Part 1. Regional Studies and Epithermal Deposits

U.S. Geological Survey, MS-901, 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, California 94025

Albert H. Hofstra

U.S. Geological Survey, MS-973, Federal Center, Denver, Colorado 80225

Ted G. Theodore

U.S. Geological Survey, MS-901, 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, California 94025

Corresponding author: e-mail, djohn@usgs.gov

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

	Introduction

 
Northern Nevada is one of the Earth’s premier gold- and silver-producing regions, and gold and silver are mined from a wide range of deposit types (Table 1). Current production largely comes from Carlin-type sedimentary rock-hosted disseminated gold deposits (Christensen, 1995; Teal and Jackson, 1997; Bettles, 2002), many of which lie along linear trends (Fig. 1; Roberts, 1960, 1966; Berger and Bagby, 1991). The small area of the Carlin trend (approximately 8 x 65 km) is North America’s most prolific gold mining district, producing nearly 125 t (4 Moz) of gold annually. Since large-scale mining began in 1965 with the opening of the Carlin mine, the Carlin trend has produced more than 1555 t (50 Moz) of gold. During 2001, gold production from the entire state of Nevada was nearly 253 t (8.13 Moz), which accounted for approximately 76 percent of the United States and 10 percent of the world production (Price and Meeuwig, 2002). In 2001, only the countries of South Africa and Australia produced more gold than the state of Nevada. In addition, Nevada produced 543 t (17.4 Moz) of silver in 2001—about 31 percent of the United States production and 3 percent of the world production.

View larger version (34K): [in this window] [in a new window]   FIG. 1. Index map of northern Nevada showing significant Carlin-type, pluton-related, and epithermal gold deposits (modified from Long et al., 1998), and geographic features and deposits described in the text. Heavy lines show the major mineral trends and lineaments. Small box at north end of the Carlin trend shows the location of the Beaver Peak and Santa Renia Fields 7 minute quadrangles (Theodore et al., 2003). Dashed lines outline the corridor . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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