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Mountain View Gold Project

Producer in Washoe county in Nevada, United States with commodities Gold, Silver, Lead, Copper, Mercury, Arsenic, Antimony
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Sections on this page
  1. Identification information
  2. Geographic coordinates
  3. Site location context
  4. Geographic areas
  5. Public Land Survey System information
  6. Commodities
  7. Materials information
  8. Alteration
  9. Mineral occurrence model information
  10. Host and associated rocks
  11. Nearby scientific data
  12. Geologic structures
  13. Ore body information
  14. Controls for ore emplacement
  15. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  16. Mining district
  17. Land status
  18. Ownership information
  19. Bibliographic references
  20. General comments
  21. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10310432
MRDS ID M242563
Record type Site
Current site name Mountain View Gold Project
Related records 10047285, 10149935

Comments on the site identification

  • The Mountain View project deposit is on the alluvium-covered pediment below the old Mountain View Mine, MRDS # M242563, which is situated on the ridge to the east above the current prospect.

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -119.50102, 40.84988 (WGS84)
Elevation 1680
Relative position The Mountain View Project is located about 12 miles northwest of Gerlach, Nevada.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Washoe(county)

Nevada(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Big Sawmill Canyon(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Gerlach(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Lovelock(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Smoke Creek Desert(hydrologic unit)

Black Rock Desert(hydrologic accounting unit)

Black Rock Desert-Humboldt(hydrologic subregion)

Great Basin(hydrologic region)

Federal lands

Bureau of Land Management(Bureau of Land Management NV)

Bureau of Land Management NV BLM(Type of land area)

BLM(Federal land areas administered by BLM)

Geographic areas

Country State County
United States Nevada Washoe

Public Land Survey System information

Meridian Township Range Section Fraction State
Mount Diablo 034N 022E 16 17 Nevada

Comments on the location information

  • The property is located about 2 miles northeast of Squaw Valley Ranch on the west flank of the Granite Range.

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary
Silver Primary
Lead Secondary
Copper Secondary
Mercury Tertiary
Arsenic Critical Tertiary
Antimony Critical Tertiary

Comments on the commodity information

  • Ore Materials: gold, silver selenides, galena, tennantite
  • Gangue Materials: quartz, marcasite, adularia, calcite, pyrite

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold Ore
Galena Ore
Tennantite Ore
Quartz Gangue
Marcasite Gangue
Adularia Gangue
Calcite Gangue
Pyrite Gangue

Alteration

  • (Local) A skarn-hornfels zone is developed adjacent to a Cretaceous age granitic intrusive body. Widespread argillic alteration is developed in poorly exposed Mid-Miocene flow-banded rhyolitic volcanic rocks.

Mineral occurrence model information

Model code 104
USGS model code 25a
Deposit model name Hot-spring Au-Ag
Mark3 model number 45

Host and associated rocks

  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Volcanic Rock (Aphanitic) > Felsic Volcanic Rock > Rhyolite
    Rock type qualifier flow dome?
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Tertiary
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Volcanic Rock (Aphanitic) > Mafic Volcanic Rock > Basalt
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Quaternary
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Metamorphic Rock > Hornfels
    Rock type qualifier black schistose
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Metamorphic Rock > Metasedimentary Rock
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Metamorphic Rock > Metavolcanic Rock
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Sedimentary Rock > Conglomerate
    Rock type qualifier limestone pebble
  • Host or associated Associated
    Rock type Plutonic Rock > Granitoid > Granodiorite
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Cretaceous

Nearby scientific data

(1) -119.50102, 40.84988
ListMap

Economic information

Geologic structures

Type of structure Regional
Structure description Basin and Range type extensional faulting
Type of structure Local
Structure description Shear zones; range-front fault on west side of the Granite Range.

Ore body information

  • General form irregular

Controls for ore emplacement

  • Mineralization may be controlled in part by an intrusive contact with metamorphic rocks.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Operation type Surface-Underground
Development status Producer
Commodity type Metallic
Deposit size Small
Significant Yes
Discovery year 1938

Mining district

District name Deephole District

Land status

Ownership category BLM Administrative Area
Area name Susanville BLM Administrative District(?)

Ownership information

  • Type Owner-Operator
    Owner Vista Gold Corp.
    Year 2004

Comments on the workings information

  • Historic workings consist of 2 adits, one up to 1000 ft long, open cut, 2 shafts, drifts, raises, winzes. More recent surface exploration work and drilling.

Comments on other economic factors

  • In 1998, Breckenridge reported reserves of 10.7 million tons of ore grading 0.055 opt Au, with a drill- indicated resource of 500,000 ocntaine d ounces of gold and 3 million ounces of silver.
    Gold resources of the Mountain View property as reported by Vista Gold prepared in 2002 were:
    a measured and indicated 23,219,000 short tons of ore grading 0.013 opt gold, for a contained 298,143 ounces of gold, and an inferred resource of 4,466,000 short tons of ore grading 0.039 opt gold for a contained 175,046 ounces of gold.

Comments on development

  • The historic Mountain View Mine located on the ridge to the east of the currently explored property was optioned in 1938 by Anaconda from the original claimants. From 1939 to 1941, the Burm-Ball Co. optioned the property and produced some gold ore from a winze sunk from the main (lower) adit level. This production was followed by intermittent unsuccessful attempts to rework the mine, the most recent in 1961-1962. The property was staked in1979, but there was no visible activity at the time of a field examination in 1984 by NBMG staff geologists. The current property which extends to the pediment area below the historic mine, has had several owners over the past two decades. In 1992, Canyon Resources Corp. and Independence Mining Company discovered gold mineralization 1.5 miles southwest of the old Mountain View Mine area. Subsequent owners of the property included Breckenridge Minerals, Inc. in 1999, and later, Newmont. Vista Gold acquired the Mountain View project in October 2002 from Newmont Capital Limited, a subsidiary of Newmont Mining Corp., and began evaluating its potential for both high-grade mineralization and additional bulk tonnage resources beneath the currently defined resource area. A five-hole drill program completed in November 2003 was designed to test for both types of mineralization and produced promising intercepts in at least two of the holes. In 2004, Vista Gold Corp.completed drilling a five-hole reverse circulation program totaling 4,330 feet at the Mountain View Gold property. Intercepts in two holes (230 feet of 0.039 opt Au, and 165 feet of 0.026 opt Au) indicate the presence of a new zone of bulk mineralization approximately 400 feet east of the known core of mineralization. Higher grade gold intercepts included 5 feet of 0.370 opt Au and 20 feet of 0.112 opt Au.

Comments on the environmental information

  • District mineralization is a large Mid-Miocene epithermal gold system that is part of the 15 Ma low-sulfidation, base-metal poor, Se-rich epithermal province characteristic of the NW great Basin, including the Sleeper, Hog Ranch and Delamar districts.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit The mineralized area consists of a sheeted vein zone of quartz veins cutting black schistose hornfels, associated with granodiorite. Calcite crystals are on dump of old workings, also calcite veining and copper oxides are present in intrusive rock on the dump. Pre-1985 exploration focused on gold-bearing, irregular, discontinuous, quartz-cemented breccia in pre-Tertiary limestone exposed in the footwall side pf the range-front fault forming the western side of the Granite Range. Originally recognized mineralization was in a weak skarn-hornfels zone associated with a Cretaceous age granitic intrusive body. Post-1985 activity discovered widespread argillic alteration in poorly exposed Mid-Miocene flow-banded rhyolitic volcanic rocks (flow dome?) in the hanging wall of the fault 1.5 mile SW of the old mine area. Locally high-grade gold mineralization does not outcrop at the surface and is buried under several hundred feet of colluvium. mineralization consists of of a multistage, pyritic, quartz-adularia stockwork within brecciated and silicified volcanic rocks. Stockwork veins are generally less than 3 cm in width composed of quartz-marcasite, and finely banded quartz-adularia with low sulfide content, bladed quartz after calcite and areas of gold grains with abundant fine-grained silver selenides. Gold also occurs in the siliceous breccia matrix. Basalt below the rhyolite is locally altered and mineralized.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 01-JUN-2004 LaPointe, D.D. Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology
Editor 01-SEP-2007 Schruben, Paul G. U.S. Geological Survey Converted from S&A FileMaker format to Oracle. Edit checks on rocks, units, and ages with Geolex search, and other fields.

Beyond USGS

Supplemental information added by qvyshift.com. Not part of the original USGS MRDS record.

Maps centered on this site

Authoritative Nevada resources

These are landing pages for further research — the state agencies don't currently expose per-mine deep links.