Carlin Unconformity

The Carlin Unconformity or Carlin Trend is a geologic feature in northeastern Nevada which represents a period of erosion or non-deposition likely associated with a collision between a tectonic crustal block called a terrane and the North American Plate. The collision occurred during the Devonian Era, about 350 million years B.P. The collision is associated with what is sometimes referred to as the Antler Orogeny.

The collision induced higher crustal temperatures and pressures which produced numerous hot springs along the suture zone. Several episodes of subsurface magmatism are known to have occurred subsequent to the collision, associated with tectonic forces affecting the entire Basin and Range. During each of these episodes, and particularly during the Eocene epoch, hot springs brought dissolved minerals toward the surface, precipitating them out along fissures. Among these minerals were gold and silver.

The Carlin Gold trend is one of the world's richest gold mining districts. It is a belt of gold deposits, primarily in Paleozoic limy sediments, that is about 5 miles wide and 40 miles long, extending in a north-northwest direction through the town of Carlin, Nevada. Gold was first discovered in the area in the 1870s, but there was very little production until 1909, and only about 22,000 ounces was produced through 1964. By 2002, mines in the Carlin Trend had produced over 50 million ounces of gold, worth around US$47 billion at 2009 prices.

See also

• John Livermore
• Ralph J. Roberts
• Gold mining in Nevada

i love winty

References

• Basin and Range, by John McPhee, published 1981 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.
• Assembling California, by John McPhee, published 1993 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.
• Michael W. Ressel and Christopher D. Henry, Igneous Geology of the Carlin Trend, Nevada: Development of the Eocene Plutonic Complex and Significance for Carlin-Type Gold Deposits [1], Economic Geology, March 2006; v. 101; no. 2