MAGNETOTELLURIC DATA ACROSS THE
BATTLE MOUNTAIN-EUREKA AND CARLIN TRENDS, 
NEAR THE 41ST PARALLEL, NEVADA  

by 

Jackie M. Williams and Brian D. Rodriguez

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Open-File Report 01-278


Many sediment-hosted gold deposits occur along linear trends in 
northern Nevada.  The distribution and genesis of these deposits 
along the Battle Mountain-Eureka and Carlin gold trends is not 
fully understood.  In general, most models agree that regional 
structures played an important role in the spatial distribution of 
these deposits.  To investigate crustal structures that may be related 
to the genesis of gold deposits along these trends, a regional west-
east profile of magnetotelluric soundings was acquired in 1998 and 
2000.  Resistivity modeling of the magnetotelluric data can be used 
to infer the deep resistivity structure of the crust to investigate 
possible tectonic controls on the emplacement of mineral deposits 
along these linear trends that may be used to help improve critical 
gold endowment estimates in the Humboldt River Basin.  The 
purpose of this report is to release the magnetotelluric sounding 
data; no interpretation of the data is included.