An update on the Northeast Nevada Eocene Paleogeography, Volcanic Succession, & the Depth of Formation of Sediment-Hosted Gold Deposits of the Northern Carlin Trend, Nevada

INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Geological Society of Nevada’s 2005 Symposium Field Trip 3 which will take a trip through the Eocene paleogeographic setting of northeast Nevada with Ken Hickey and Dick Tosdal of MDRU, University of British Columbia. Ken and Dick have been conducting research that began in the Northern Carlin Trend and has since expanded to include the Cortez and Getchel areas. We will visit a variety of Eocene exposures that will set the stage for their ultimate goal of determining the depth of formation during the deposition of the “Carlin-type” sediment-hosted deposits. We will also visit two of the giants of Carlin-type deposits, Gold Quarry and Goldstrike, containing a combined total of more than sixty million ounces of gold. The evenings at the Red Lion Inn in Elko include presentations from Ken and Dick on their research as well as Don Harris of Newmont Gold Corp. and Bob Leonardson and Jerry Rahn of Barrick Gold Corp. on the two giants.
The field trip will begin in Reno on Wednesday morning, May 11 and will involve two nights’ lodging at the Red Lion Inn in Elko. We will drive to Lamoille Canyon to start our review of the Eocene Elko Basin, bounded by the Ruby Mountains to the east and south and the Independence Range and Northern Tuscarora mountains to the north and west. The rest of the day will involve stops in the Elko Hills and Northern Adobe Range where the best eastern exposures of the Elko Formation will be observe, setting the stage for day two.
Thursday morning will take the group to the Southern Independence Range where we will see where the basin sedimentation was overwhelmed by deposition of extensive ash flow tuffs. We will continue south while traveling down the western basin margin of the to the area above Gold Quarry where we will discuss another facet of the study that used low temperature apatite thermochronology to constrain the depth of formation of nearby Carlin-type sediment hosted gold deposits. We then go to Gold Quarry where Don Harris will lead a tour of the mine. The evening will have Bob Leonardson and Jerry Rahn give a review of the Goldstrike deposit and continue discussions of the Eocene setting. Friday morning we will tour the Goldstrike deposit and discuss ongoing research on the potential relationship of low-temperature thermal anomalies found around Carlin-type deposits to their origin. Following this tour we will travel back to Reno.