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Goldbanks Gold Deposit

Past Producer in Pershing county in Nevada, United States with commodities Gold, Silver, Mercury
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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 10310549
MRDS ID M060491
Record type Site
Current site name Goldbanks Gold Deposit
Related records 10042634, 10222179

Comments on the site identification

  • The currently described gold property encompasses an area that includes the old Goldbanks Quicksilver mine, MRDS record M060491.

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -117.68429, 40.45823 (WGS84)
Elevation 1720
Relative position The deposit is located approximately 38 miles south of Winnemucca and approximately eight kilometers (5 miles) west of the historic Goldbanks gold mining area.\n

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Pershing(county)

Nevada(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Goldbanks Hills(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Fish Creek Mountains(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Winnemucca(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Dixie Valley(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 Pershing

Public Land Survey System information

Meridian Township Range Section Fraction State
Mount Diablo 030N 038E 14 Nevada

Comments on the location information

  • The site is in the Goldbanks Hills centered about 800 m northeast of Squaw Butte, in the vicinity of the old QuickSilver Mine.

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary
Silver Secondary
Mercury Tertiary

Comments on the commodity information

  • Ore Materials: gold
  • Gangue Materials: quartz, pyrite, arsenopyrite, marcasite, goethite, hematite, cinnabar

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold Ore
Pyrite Ore
Arsenopyrite Ore
Marcasite Ore
Goethite Ore
Hematite Ore
Cinnabar Ore
Quartz Gangue

Alteration

  • (Local) Widespread, pervasive silicification affects all rock units stratigraphically below the mudstone. Breccia units are most strongly silicified as is the lithic sandstone in some areas. Very fine-grained adularia accompanies silicification. Argillic alteration overprints the silica with illite as the main alteration clay mineral. Zones of intense iron oxidation (goethite and limonite) follow fractures and veins to depths as much as 365 meters below the surface. In the Main gold zone, a gray pervasive silicification resembling jasperoid is associated with gold mineralization, although open-space drusy quartz is also common.
    A thick layer of opaline sinter overlies the gold mineralized units and capping mudstone. The opalite hosted the mercury deposits in the area.

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 Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Sedimentary Rock > Sandstone
    Rock type qualifier lithic (litharenite)
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Tertiary
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Sedimentary Rock > Sedimentary Breccia
    Rock type qualifier polylithic breccia
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Tertiary
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type
    Rock unit name Havallah Sequence
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Early Permian
    Stratigraphic age (oldest) Middle Pennsylvanian
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Plutonic Rock > Granitoid > Granite
    Rock type qualifier leuco-
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Tertiary
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Volcanic Rock (Aphanitic) > Felsic Volcanic Rock > Rhyolite
    Rock type qualifier tuffs
    Rock unit name Koipato Group
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Late Permian
    Stratigraphic age (oldest) Early Triassic
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Volcanic Rock (Aphanitic) > Pyroclastic Rock > Tuff
    Rock type qualifier rhyolitic
    Rock unit name Koipato Group
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Late Permian
    Stratigraphic age (oldest) Early Triassic

Nearby scientific data

(1) -117.68429, 40.45823
ListMap

Economic information

Geologic structures

Type of structure Local
Structure description An extensive network of NNW-, NE-, and strong NW to almostE-W-trending faults dissect the property in the vicinity of the Main Zone.
Type of structure Regional
Structure description Late Paleozoic rocks in the area are part of the allochthonous block of the Golconda thrust plate emplaced during the Sonoma Orogeny.

Ore body information

  • General form blanket

Controls for ore emplacement

  • Epithermal mineralization is interpreted to have been formed by gold and silica-rich solutions ascending along steep fault structures until they encountered permeable clastic sediments along which the solutions migrated outwards to form a siliceous blanket-shaped deposit in the Main Zone measuring 2 km by 1 km and approximately 90 m thick. The predominant permeable host rock lithologies are a basal lithic sandstone (well-sorted litharenite) and an overlying polylithic breccia (mostly conglomeratic with abundant hydrothermal and tectonic brecciation). Overlying these two lithologies is a thick unit of lacustrine mudstones which appears to have acted as an impermeable cap for localizing silica and gold mineralization in the more permeable units below it. The structural axis and hydrothermal conduit for the Main Zone mineralization does not appear to have a surface expression; but drilling has outlined a major north-south zone about which the gold mineralization has spread laterally. Because the major gold resource has no surface expression, and Quaternary alluvium and basalts blanket much of the area, the presence and amount of any fault displacement of the ore zones is speculative.
    Mineralization

Comments on the geologic information

  • The Tertiary rocks have been subdivided, based on dominant lithologies, into six rock units at Goldbanks, although interbedding, intertonguing and facies changes are apparent within individual units. The basal unit (main ore host) is a lithic sandstone (litharenite) and is followed successively upwards by polylithic breccia (main ore host), lacustrine mudstone, opaline sinter, weakly-cemented sediments and basalt flows. The Tertiary strata were deposited into a rapidly subsiding basin, which covers most of the Goldbanks area. Basin margins are buried under basalt or Quaternary alluvium in the south and west portions of the property, but have been mapped in areas to the north and east. The basin development probably coincided with the onset of Basin and Range faulting approximately 16 Ma, and most mappable structures within the basin are consistent with Basin and Range trends.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Operation type Surface-Underground
Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic
Deposit size Small
Significant Yes
Discovery year 1986
Discoverer Gary L. Grauberger

Mining district

District name Goldbanks District

Land status

Ownership category BLM Administrative Area
Area name Winnemucca BLM District

Ownership information

  • Type Owner-Operator
    Owner Kinross Gold
    Year 2000

Comments on the workings information

  • The ollder workings for mercury include numerous bulldozer cuts, short adits, shallow shafts, and two small open pits. More recently drill roads and diamond drill holes have been put in.

Comments on other economic factors

  • The estimated resources of the Goldbanks deposit in 1996 were 392000 kilotonnes of ore containing 188 tonnes of gold and an unknown amount of silver. In 2000, the drill-outlined geologic resource was 166 million tonnes with a grade of 0.48 g/t gold and 1.40 g/t silver.

Comments on development

  • The Goldbanks district was first explored for gold, which was discovered in 1907. Around 1912, mercury in cinnabar was discovered a few miles west of the gold deposits, in the area of the current gold property. During World War I, the Goldbanks Quicksilver mine yielded over 34,473 kg of mercury. After a 20-year lull, the area again produced 10,342 kg mercury in 1937 and produced an additional 45,573 kg of mercury, between 1941 and 1969. The cinnabar area was most productive in the 1960s when Star City Mines, Ltd. operated silica pits in the area.
    In 1986, G. L. Grauberger located 300 lode mining claims in the Goldbanks district and through 1988 drilled 21 reverse circulation holes on approximate 305 meter centers,which outlined a gold mineralized zone approximately 1,830 m by 914 m. In November 1990, the property was assigned to Restoration Minerals, a new company controlled by Grauberger, and drilling continued on the property. In May 1995, Kinross Gold USA, Inc. executed a joint venture agreement to further explore and develop the Goldbanks property under the corporate name of Kinross Goldbanks Mining Company and in 1998, Kinross acquired a 100 percent interest. Work carried out to date includes core drilling, reverse- circulation drilling and metallurgical testing. This work has delineated two distinct gold deposits along a north-south trending axis 6.4 kilometers in length: the Main Zone, with 92 percent of the gold resource, centered under Squaw Butte and the KW area, 3.2 kilometers to the north. The Goldbanks deposit has had 1176 holes drilled to outline a geologic resource of 166 million tonnes with a grade of 0.48 g/t gold and 1.40 g/t silver. In 1999, plans to open the Kinross Goldbanks Mine were put on an indefinite hold. The company planned to complete the EIS for the mine, but all other permit applications were put on hold.

Comments on the environmental information

  • The mineralized area is in the headwaters of both the Grass Valley drainage to the north and the Pleasant Valley drainage to the southeast.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Mineralization does not crop out, and is covered by a cap of basaltic flows and weakly consolidated Tertiary sediments. Kinross has delineated two mineralized deposits: the Main Zone, and the KW area. Main ore host rocks are Tertiary basin sediments deposited about 17 million years ago. The best hosts for gold mineralization are permeable lithic sandstone and the polylithic breccia at the base of the basin sequence. Fractured areas in Paleozoic Havallah sequence and leucogranite intrusive rocks also host minor amounts of gold mineralization. The epithermal mineralization is interpreted to have been formed by gold and silica-rich solutions ascending along steep fault structures until they encountered permeable clastic sediments along which the solutions migrated outwards to form a siliceous blanket-shaped deposit in the Main Zone measuring 2 km by 1 km and approximately 90 m thick.
Mineralization in the KW area is largely structurally controlledwith higher grade mineralization localized in a pipe-like breccia body at the intersection of N- and NNE-trending faults. The higher-grade material in the KW zone does not have a significant envelope of lower grade mineralization around it, as is the case in the Main Zone. Gold mineralization in the KW area occurs primarily within polylithic breccia, the Havallah sequence rocks and brecciated Koipato rhyolite.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 01-MAR-2001 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

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