Mineral resources of the Blue Eagle Wilderness Study Area, Nye County, Nevada

Abstract

The Blue Eagle Wilderness Study Area (NV-060158/199) lies in the Basin and Range province of eastcentral Nevada (fig. 1). A mineral survey of 51,350 acres of the wilderness study area in Nye County, Nev., was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) during 1984 and 1985. New geologic mapping of the area was completed, geochemical sampling of the area was conducted, geophysical characteristics were evaluated, and unpatented claim blocks in the area were investigated. The entire Blue Eagle Wilderness Study Area has high energy resource potential for petroleum, although appropriate traps have not been identified. Most of the area is covered by oil and gas leases. Moderate mineral resource potential is recognized for three types of metal occurrence in five areas (fig. 2). The southwestern corner of the area has moderate potential for tungsten and polymetallic base-metal (bismuth, molybdenum, copper, lead, and zinc) deposits in hydrothermal (lowto medium-temperature) replacement deposits in low-grade metamorphic rocks and for gold and silver in quartz veins associated with the replacement mineralization. The north and central parts of the area have moderate potential for gold in disseminated deposits associated with jasperoid occurrences. Two areas on the southeastern and western sides of the wilderness study area have moderate potential for zinc and antimony deposits possibly associated with hydrothermal fluids that moved along highly brecciated fault zones. The study area has low resource potential for all other metals, nonmetals, geothermal energy, and coal. The study area has no identified resources. Character and Setting The Blue Eagle Wilderness Study Area is in northeastern Nye County, Nev., in the northern Grant Range 4 mi (miles) southeast of Currant (fig. 1). Improved and unimproved roads provide access to the northern, northeastern, and western sides of the wilderness study area. Old unimproved roads along the eastern and southern boundaries of the wilderness study area are impassable. The eastern side of the northern Grant Range is topographically gentle and generally heavily forested; the western side is cliffy and deeply dissected. The total relief is about 4,960 ft (feet) between Railroad Valley, west of the range, and the highest point in the range at Blue Eagle Mountain (9,561 ft). The Grant Range is an east-tilted fault block. The faulting exposed a stratigraphic section, from west to east, of thick carbonate sedimentary rocks of the Paleozoic (see geologic time scale in Appendix) continental shelf that are overlain by Tertiary basin deposits and by a sequence of Tertiary volcanic and basin-fill deposits. The oldest exposed rocks, which are on the western side of the range, are metamorphosed lower Paleozoic rocks. In detail, the range is structurally complex; the area has been affected by both Mesozoic compressional and Tertiary extensional processes. The wilderness study area is northeast of the Troy and Willow Creek mining districts (fig. 1). One group of unpatented lode claims is in the wilderness study Blue Eagle Wilderness Study Area D1