Horseshoe Mine

Producer in White Pine county in Nevada, United States with commodity Gold
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. Geologic structures
  12. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  13. Mining district
  14. Land status
  15. Ownership information
  16. Bibliographic references
  17. General comments
  18. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10310449
Record type Site
Current site name Horseshoe Mine
Alternate or previous names Horseshoe/Galaxy Mine, part of Mooney Basin Mine Area
Related records 10310448, 10310450, 10310451

Comments on the site identification

  • The Horseshoe Mine deposit is encompassed by Placer Dome?s Mooney Basin mine area.

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -115.5014, 39.9196 (WGS84)
Elevation 2125
Relative position The mine is located about 110 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of Ely, Nevada and about 110 kilometers (60 miles) south-southeast of Elko, Nevada. Lat/long from Rockwell and Hofstra, 2008, and Nutt and Hofstra, 2007.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

White Pine(county)

Nevada(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Big Bald Mountain(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Newark Lake(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Ely(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Long-Ruby Valleys(hydrologic unit)

Central Nevada Desert Basins(hydrologic accounting unit)

Central Nevada Desert Basins(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 White Pine

Public Land Survey System information

Meridian Township Range Section Fraction State
Mount Diablo 024N 057E 25 Nevada

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary

Comments on the commodity information

  • Ore Materials: gold

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold Ore

Mineral occurrence model information

Model code 173
USGS model code 26a.1
Deposit model name Sediment-hosted Au
Mark3 model number 17

Host and associated rocks

  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Sedimentary Rock
    Rock unit name Pilot Shale
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Early Mississippian
    Stratigraphic age (oldest) Late Devonian
  • Host or associated Associated
    Rock type Plutonic Rock > Porphyry
    Rock type qualifier Intrusive quartz

Economic information

Geologic structures

Type of structure Regional
Structure description The Bald Mountain district is located in an area of thinned crust along the eastern side of the Late Proterozoic rift that split the North American craton. It is also in the west-central portion of the Late Devonian-Early Mississippian Antler foreland basin, and near the eastern edge of deformation related to the late Paleozoic Humboldt orogeny To the west of the Bald Mountain district, geologic interpretations are dominated by recognition of Paleozoic deformation, whereas to the east, interpretations emphasize Mesozoic contraction and plutonism and Tertiary extension.
Type of structure Local
Structure description At Galaxy, the dominant structure controls are

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Operation type Surface
Development status Producer
Commodity type Metallic
Deposit size Small
Significant Yes
Discoverer Lyle Campbell
Year of first production 1991
Year of last production 1992
Production years 1991-1992

Mining district

District name Bald Mountain District

Land status

Ownership category BLM Administrative Area
Area name Ely BLM district

Ownership information

  • Type Owner-Operator
    Owner Barrick Gold Corp.
    Year 2006

Comments on other economic factors

  • In 1991, the Horseshoe deposit reserves were reported at 1.5 milion tons of ore grading 0.039 opt gold.

Comments on development

  • Development in the northeastern part of the district began in 1987. The ARM Joint Venture (Amselco with, at dif- ferent times, Occidental Petroleum, Nerco, Kennecott) began relinquishing claim groups north of Alligtor Ridge Mine that were originally staked as part of an agreement with Lyle Campbell. Campbell retained and maintained the claim groups and, in November 1987, leased the Casino-Winrock area of claims to the USMX-Pegasus Joint Venture who began mining the deposit in 1991.
    Mining commenced in July, 1991 and was completed in 1992. Haul distance was 1.3 miles and strip ratio was 0.93:1.
    In 2006, Barrick Gold Corp. acquired the Horseshoe Mine property through its acquisition of Placer Dome U. S., Inc.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

  • Location

    Rockwell, Barnaby W. and Hofstra, Albert H., 2008, Identification of quartz and carbonate minerals across northern Nevada using ASTER thermal infrared emissivity data?Implications for geologic mapping and mineral resource investigations in well-studied and frontier areas; Geosphere; February 2008; v. 4; no. 1; p. 218-246, Plate 12. http://geosphere.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/full/4/1/218/DC1

  • Deposit

    USMX, 1990, Annual report for 1989.

  • Location

    Nutt, C. J. and Hofstra, A. H., 2007, Bald Mountain Gold Mining District, Nevada: A Jurassic Reduced Intrusion-Related Gold System; Economic Geology, v. 102, pp. 1129?1155. http://econgeol.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/reprint/102/6/1129.pdf

  • Deposit

    USMX, 1992, Annual report for 1991

  • Deposit

    NBMG MI-88 through MI-02

  • Deposit

    NBMG Map 91, 2nd, 3rd

  • Deposit

    DEIS, 1995

  • Deposit

    FEIS, 1995

  • Deposit

    Amer. Mines (1991-92), 1991 thru Amer. Mines (2000), 2001

  • Deposit

    Nevada Land Status, 1990

  • Deposit

    Long, K.R., DeYoung, J.H., Jr., and Ludington, S.D., 1998, Database of significant deposits of gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc in the United States; Part A, Database description and analysis; part B, Digital database: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 98-206, 33 p., one 3.5 inch diskette.

  • Deposit

    Nutt, C.J., Hofstra, A.H., Hart, K.S., and Mortensen, J.K., 2000, Structural setting and genesis of gold deposits in the Bald Mountain-Alligator Ridge area, east-central Nevada, in Cluer, J.K., Price, J.G., Struhsacker, E.M., Hardyman, R.F., and Morris, C.L., eds., Geology and Ore Deposits 2000: The Great Basin and Beyond: Geological Society of Nevada Symposium Proceedings, May 15-18, 2000, p. 513-537.

  • Deposit

    Hitchborn and others, 1996, Geology and Gold Deposits of the Bald Mountain Mining District, White Pine County, Nevada, in Geology and Ore Deposits of the American Cordillera Symposium Proceedings, eds. A. Coyner and P. Fahey.

  • Deposit

    The Geological Society of Nevada 1996 Spring Field trip, Geology and Gold Deposits of Eastern Nevada, GSN Special Publication No. 23.

  • Deposit

    NBMG MI-91 thru MI-00

  • Deposit

    DEIS, 1995

  • Deposit

    FEIS, 1995

  • Deposit

    Nevada Land Status, 1990;

  • Deposit

    www.placerdome.com

  • Deposit

    BLM, 2004, Bald Mountain Mine Exploration Program Programmatic Environmental Assessment NV040-04-023, Case File # N78825.

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Horseshoe has dominant trends of N4050W that are about parallel to the Bida trend.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 01-NOV-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.

Authoritative Nevada resources

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