The geology of the Weepah mining district, Esmeralda County, Nevada

Abstract

The Weepah mining district of east-central Esmeralda County exemplifies many of the gold camps throughout Nevada--small, sporadic production, and limited geologic information. The discovery of gold by Horton and Traynor in 1927 provided the impetus for what proved to be the last significant "gold rush" in the western United States. The district differs from the typical early western Nevada gold mines in that even with an increase in the price of gold, the deposit was economical only by using open-pit mining methods. Production from the Weepah district between 1904 and 1939 is valued in excess of 1.8 million dollars. The oldest rocks exposed in the Weepah district are Precambrian pelitic and carbonate strata of the Wyman Formation and Reed Dolomite. The Precambrian units are overlain by allochthonous Lower Cambrian and Middle Ordovician sedimentary rocks. The entire Paleozoic sequence has been intruded by Jurassic (?) to Middle Paleocene granitic and dioritic rocks. Quaternary sediments unconformably overlie the earlier rocks.