The Cove Open Pit Au-Ag Mine and Anticline, Nevada

I found a photo that I snapped in October 2000 of the Cove pit showing the well exposed anticline.  October 2000 was the last month of open pit mining at the Cove. The anticline is no longer visible owing to the pit lake. It is great to see classic geological structures exposed in open pits, so I am posting it so that others can see the annotated photo.

The orebody is largely controlled by the crest of the anticline and favorable stratigraphic units of the Augusta Mountain Formation (Triassic). Three members of the formation are exposed in this view of the pit.  In addition one of the Eocene felsic dikes filling a fault shows up as the light colored linear that stair steps through the benches. The post mineral Tuff of Cove Mine fills the erosional trough that is superimposed on the axis of the anticline owing to fracturing and hydrothermal alteration.

Premier Gold Mines Ltd. continues to explore the Cove/McCoy area and has had some significant intercepts of gold and silver at depths suitable for underground mining.

They released new (April 15, 2017) a technical report on the project. It is available on their website via this link:  NI 43-101 McCoy-Cove Project, NV  This excellent report is on the McCoy-Cove mineralization, the geology of the deposits and the current status of their exploration.

From Page 6-6 of their technical report, the total production from McCoy and Cove from 1986 through 2006 was 3.41 M ozs of gold and 110.2 M ozs of silver. The vast majority of the silver is from the Cove deposit and approximately 2.6 M ozs of gold is attributed the Cove deposit.