Gold Specimens from the Round Mountain Mine, Nevada

The Round Mountain gold deposit is located in central Nevada and is a low-grade, disseminated gold deposit. The mineralization is hosted by Tertiary rhyolite tuff and Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks. The deposit was discovered in the early 1900s by local prospectors. The discovery included a multi-pound gold "nugget" that was found at a badger hole on the flank of the hill of Round Mountain. Early production was by placer, open cut and underground mining. Modern production began in 1977 and continues today (2019) by open pit mining with the gold recovered by heap leaching and milling.

The mine is currently owned and operated by Round Mountain Mining Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Kinross Gold Corp. The gold production since 1977 exceeds 15 million troy ounces.

The Round Mountain deposit is unique in the quality of coarse, crystalline gold (electrum) specimens that it has yielded. These are a few examples of the gold from the author's collection.


Coarse gold veining with quartz vein cutting a hydrothermally altered rhyolite tuff. The vein with adularia is 26.0 Ma
and the rhyolite tuff is 26.5 Ma



Coarse gold associated with intense quartz-adularia (potassic) alteration in the non-welded pumice tuff of Round Mountain.



Crystalline gold in quartz +/- adularia vein hosted
by Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks.




Coarse crystalline gold "nugget" 
approximately 1.3 troy ounces (electrum.) 



For more information on the Round Mountain gold mine just Google it and for a satellite image search for "Round Mountain, Nevada" in Google Earth.

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.

Nevada Gold: Hoping for better times in 2017

To all of my friends and Nevada geo's, here is to hoping that 2017 brings higher gold prices and VG in your rock samples!

Coarse, crystalline gold from Nevada, about 1.2 troy ozs.