Lander County Nevada Gold Production
The New Pass district is on the east slope of New Pass Range near the boundary of Lander and Churchill Counties, 31 miles west of Austin.
Gold was discovered here in 1865, but production was never large (Vanderburg, 1939, p. 65); the total through 1959 was about 16,000 ounces.
The country rocks are limestone, gabbro, and porphyry; the ore deposits are gold-quartz veins in the gabbro. Vein minerals are quartz, native gold, argentiferous galena, auriferous pyrite, copper sul-fide, azurite, and malachite (Lincoln, 1923, p. 114).
REESE RIVER DISTRICT
The Reese River district is in southern Lander County near Austin.
This has been overwhelmingly a silver-producing district, but small unrecorded amounts of gold contained in the ore from the huge silver production probably qualify the district as a minor gold-producing area.
Silver was discovered in 1862 a few miles west of the present town of Austin. Production was low the first few years, but after consolidation of many properties by the Manhattan Silver Mining Co. in 1870, it increased and remained at a fairly high level until after 1910, when most of the properties were taken over by lessees (Vanderburg, 1939, p. 69). From 1935 to 1937 there was a marked increase in production and from 1947 to 1950 several companies conducted exploration in the district (Ross, 1953, p. 42-46).
The period of highest production was 1862-87, when silver ore worth an estimated $20 million was produced (Ross, 1953, p. 47). In the period 1887-1938 about $1 million worth of ore was mined. In the early days, payment was made for silver only (Ross, 1953, p. 34) ; the small amounts of gold and other metals present were considered impurities and served to decrease the value of the bullion.
From 1902 through 1936, a total of 2,813 ounces of gold—2,810 ounces of byproduct gold and 3 ounces of placer gold—was produced in the district.
The rocks in the northern part of the district are quartzites, tentatively assigned to the Cambrian. Underlying most of the remainder of the district is a pluton of quartz monzonite of Jurassic (?) age. Numerous xenoliths of the sedimentary rocks are found in the intrusive. Aplite, pegmatite, and lam-prophyre stringers and dikes are common. Around the edges of the district and resting on the quartz monzonite are Tertiary dacite flows and welded tuffs (Ross, 1953, p. 9-10, 17-18).
Ore deposits are veins in joints in the quartz monzonite and along bedding planes in the quartzite (Ross, 1953, p. 23). Ore minerals are ruby silver minerals and tetrahedrite and varying amounts of pyrite, arsenopyrite, galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, stibnite, covellite, chalcocite. Two or three varieties of quartz make up the gangue.