Showing papers by "Richard J. Goldfarb published in 2008"

Controls on mineralisation in the Sierra Foothills gold province, central California, USA: a GIS-based reconnaissance prospectivity analysis

Abstract: The assessment of spatial relationships between the location, abundance and size of orogenic-gold deposits in the highly endowed Sierra Foothills gold province in California, via the combination of field studies and a GIS-based analysis, illustrates the power of such an approach to the characterisation of important parameters of mineral systems, and the prediction of districts likely to host economic mineralisation. Regional- to deposit-scale reconnaissance mapping suggests that deposition of gold-bearing quartz veins occurred in second- and third-order, east-over-west thrusts during regional east – west compression and right-lateral transpression. At the district-scale, significant zones of mineralisation correspond with such transpressional reactivation zones and dilational jogs that developed during the Late Jurassic – Early Cretaceous along the misaligned segments of first-order faults throughout the Sierra Nevada Foothills Metamorphic Belt. Field-based observations and interpretation of GIS data (inc...