Kern County California Gold Production
The Green Mountain district includes the area between Piute, on the west slope of the Piute Mountains, and the edge of Kelsey Valley, on the east side of the Piute Mountains.
Gold production of this district through 1959 was about 33,100 ounces. The Bright Star mine was the major producer, with an estimated $600,000 total output (Tucker and Sampson, 1933, p. 280).
Bedrock in the area consists of metasedimentary rocks of the Kernville Series of Carboniferous (?) age and Isabella Granodiorite of Jurassic (?) age (Miller and Webb, 1940, p. 349-358). The metasedimentary rocks occur in northwest-trending bands and include marble, phyllite, mica schist, and quartzite. The gold deposits are in small, but rich, shoots in narrow quartz veins.
KEYES DISTRICT
The Keyes district, 35 miles north of Caliente in T. 26 S., Rs. 32 and 33 E., produced about 39,600 ounces of gold through 1959, all from lodes.
Detailed accounts of the history and geology of this district were not found; however, Tucker and Sampson (1933, p. 283) reported that the deposits in the district are in narrow high-grade veins in granite.
RAND DISTRICT
The Rand district is on the San Bernardino-Kern County line. Randsburg, 45 miles northeast of Mojave, is in the center of the district. Although more than half the area is in San Bernardino County, nearly all the gold mined in the district has come from the western part, in Kern County. This is the most important district in Kern County, and it contains the largest gold mine in the county, the Yellow Aster. Gold has been the chief commodity mined; silver has been a byproduct.
Placer gold was discovered in the winter of 1893-94 at Goler Wash, 9 miles northwest of Randsburg, and by 1895 the lode deposits of the Yellow Aster mine were developed (Hess, 1910, p. 31-32). Of the estimated $9 to $10 million worth of ore mined before 1910, the Yellow Aster produced $6 million (Hess, 1910, p. 32). Tucker and Sampson (1933, p. 285-286) gave estimates of the production and a brief account of the geology. Gold production through 1959 was 836,300 ounces, all but about 1,700 ounces was from lode mines.
The country rock in the gold-producing part of the district consists of the Rand Schist and the Atolia Quartz Monzonite which intruded the schist. Numerous rhyolite pipes, dikes, and sills of late Miocene age are found locally. Gold ores occur in fissure veins and as impregnations and stockworks in both the monzonite and Rand schist. The strongest veins have been found to be in two systems—one strikes N. 80° E. and the other, northwest. The principal vein minerals are quartz, ar-senopyrite, pyrite, galena, gold, scheelite, iron oxides, and calcite. Only the oxidized parts of the veins have been mined.