The Gold Bar district contains five Carlin-type gold deposits and four resources for a combined gold endowment of 1.6 M oz [50 t]. The gold deposits are hosted in Devonian carbonate rocks below parautochthonous and allochthonous Paleozoic siliciclastic rocks emplaced during the Early Mississippian Antler orogeny. The district is in the Battle Mountain-Eureka trend, a long-lived structural feature that localized intrusions and ore deposits of different types and ages.

The Roberts Mountains of north-central Nevada are comprised of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that host several gold deposits and subeconomic gold resources (Fig. 1). These gold occurrences are within a regional alignment of precious and base metal deposits in north-central Nevada termed the Battle Mountain-Eureka mineral belt (Roberts, 1966). Field relations and radiometric ages in three areas of the Roberts Mountains (Maher et al., 1990) allow assignment of minimum and probable maximum ages for gold mineralization. New radiometric age data from the Roberts Mountains and other precious and base metal deposits within the Battle Mountain-Eureka mineral belt are combined in this report with previously published geologic data to construct a metallo-genic framework for gold and other metallic deposits in north-central Nevada.

A granodiorite stock intrudes complexly folded and thrust-faulted Paleozoic sedimentary rocks in the Osgood Mountains of eastern Humboldt County, Nevada. Within the metamorphic aureole surrounding the pluton, the sedimentary rocks are converted to cordierite hornfels and marble; tungsten-bearing tactites developed along the contacts of the granodiorite. Cutting the granodiorite and sedimentary rocks is the Getchell fault, along which the disseminated gold ore bodies of the Getchell mine are localized. K-Ar ages of the granodiorite, andesite porphyry, tungsten-bearing tactites, and altered granodiorite from the Getchell mine indicate that emplacement, alteration, and mineralization are all part of a magmatic-thermal episode which took place approximately 90 m.y. ago.