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Bidwell Bar District

Past Producer in Butte county in California, United States with commodity Gold
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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. Mineral occurrence model information
  9. Host and associated rocks
  10. Nearby scientific data
  11. Ore body information
  12. Controls for ore emplacement
  13. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  14. Mining district
  15. Bibliographic references
  16. General comments
  17. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10310588
Record type District
Current site name Bidwell Bar District

Comments on the site identification

  • This district is now covered by Lake Oroville. It consisted of several individual bars along the Feather River upstream from Oroville. Information on this district is sparse.

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -121.44109, 39.5559 (WGS84)
Location accuracy 100(meters)
Relative position The former site of Bidwell Bar is about seven miles east-northeast of the town of Oroville.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Butte(county)

California(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Oroville Dam(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Chico(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Chico(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Middle Fork Feather(hydrologic unit)

Lower Sacramento(hydrologic accounting unit)

Sacramento(hydrologic subregion)

California(hydrologic region)

Federal lands

ST(Federal land areas administered by ST)

Geographic areas

Country State County
United States California Butte

Public Land Survey System information

Meridian Township Range Section Fraction State
Mount Diablo 020N 005E 29, 30, 31, 32 California

Comments on the location information

  • Location selected for latitude and longitude is the former townsite of Bidwell Bar as shown on the 1947 edition of the USGS 7.5-minute Bidwell Bar quadrangle. This area is now flooded by Lake Oroville.

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary

Comments on the commodity information

  • Ore Materials: Native gold
  • Gangue Materials: Metamorphic rock, igneous rock, quartz (all clastic)

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold Ore
Quartz Gangue

Mineral occurrence model information

Model code 119
USGS model code 39a
Deposit model name Placer Au-PGE
Mark3 model number 54

Host and associated rocks

  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Unconsolidated Deposit > Sand and Gravel
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Quaternary

Nearby scientific data

(1) -121.44109, 39.5559
ListMap

Economic information

Ore body information

  • General form Irregular

Controls for ore emplacement

  • Mechanical accumulation on irregular bedrock riffles and within river- and stream-channel lag gravels, bars, and point-bar deposits.

Comments on the geologic information

  • REGIONAL GEOLOGY

    The Bidwell Bar District is situated within the westernmost part of the Sierra Nevada geologic province. This province is characterized by extremely complex lithologies and structures that were assembled through various plate-tectonic processes.

    Paleozoic-Mesozoic metamorphic complexes intruded by various Mesozoic plutons compose the basement of the province. This basement is overlain at higher elevations by erosional remnants of Cenozoic volcanic and sedimentary rocks, including gravels. Most of these various lithologies contain gold in places.

    Structurally, the metamorphic rocks and some of the plutonic rocks have been deformed by folding and faulting. The major fault zones typically trend northerly or northwesterly, although in places intrusion of the younger plutons has deformed some of the zones so as to assume other trends as well. In contrast, the overlying Cenozoic rocks are relatively undeformed.

    LOCAL GEOLOGY

    The Bidwell Bar District is characterized by high-relief landscape with narrow river canyons that have been incised into metavolcanic terrane of the Smartville Complex. To the east, this terrane is intruded by younger intermediate- to-mafic plutonic rocks. The canyon bottoms in this area contain small deposits of Quaternary alluvium in the form of active bars and terraces. The materials in these deposits have been derived by erosion of the various basement and older Cenozoic rocks at higher elevations. In places, the basement rocks contain gold within quartz veins and altered rock, while the Cenozoic deposits contain placer gold derived by erosion of these basement rocks.

    Erosion of both the gold-bearing basement rocks and the older Cenozoic rocks provided the gold that was eventually deposited in the modern placer deposits along the canyon bottoms. The narrowness of the canyons resulted in limited extents of placer deposits along the canyon bottoms.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Operation type Surface
Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic
Deposit size Small
Significant Yes
Discovery year 1848

Mining district

District name Bidwell Bar District

Comments on the workings information

  • Little specific information is available regarding the individual mining operations in the Bidwell Bar District. Because mining was conducted here largely during the gold rush period, methods of mining were probably confined to small-scale surface methods such as panning and sluicing.

Comments on other economic factors

  • Total production from this district is uncertain.

Comments on development

  • Mining during the gold rush exploited the gold-bearing gravels in and adjacent to the Feather River. The gravels reportedly were quickly exhausted, probably because of their limited extent.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

  • Deposit

    Clark, W.B., 1970, Gold districts of California: California Division of Mines and Geology Bulletin 193, p. 29-30.

  • Deposit

    Saucedo, G.J. and Wagner, D.L., 1992, Geologic map of the Chico Quadrangle, California: California Department of Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology Regional Geologic Map Series, Map No. 7A, scale 1:250,000.

  • Deposit

    Turner, H.W., 1898, Bidwell Bar folio: U.S. Geological Survey Geological Atlas of the U.S., Folio 43, 6 p.

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Most of the gold was obtained from Recent and Pleistocene gravels in and adjacent to the Feather River in this area. The placer gold was derived by erosion of gold-bearing igneous and metamorphic rocks of Paleozoic-Mesozoic age and reworked Cenozoic auriferous gravels deposited at higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 01-AUG-2006 Higgins, Chris T. California Geological Survey CGS (Formerly CDMG)
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 California resources

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