Location of 83% of estimated undiscovered Au resources in ICBEMP (from figure A).
This report is one in a series of digital maps, data files, and reports generated by the U.S. Geological Survey to provide geologic process and mineral resource information to a U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management interagency project, the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP). Short-term predictions of future mineral-economic activity can be extrapolated from the existing resource base in discovered deposits. However, long-term forecasts must also account for the future discovery of extensions of known mineral deposits (within a km of a known mineral deposit), as well as for the future discovery of presently undiscovered mineral deposits. In this report we provide quantitative estimates of the presently undiscovered mineral resources in the ICBEMP area.
Some generalizations can be made about the likely areal distribution of undiscovered deposits in the ICBEMP area. For each of the economic elements, more than 50% of the estimated mean undiscovered resource in the ICBEMP study area is estimated to occur in a limited contiguous area. 58% of the estimated mean undiscovered gold resources are estimated to occur in a contiguous area of southeastern Oregon, southwestern Idaho, and northeastern Nevada, predominantly in shallowly deposited vein and hot springs deposits. 54% of the estimated mean undiscovered silver resources are estimated to occur in the Belt Basin of northwestern Montana, northern Idaho, and easternmost Washington. A nearly identical area in Montana, Idaho and Washington accounts for 72% of those estimated mean undiscovered resources. A broadly overlapping but slightly different area in northwestern Montana, northern Idaho, and northeastern Washington accounts for 93% of the estimated mean undiscovered lead resource as well as 87% of the estimated mean undiscovered zinc resource. Finally an arcuate area extending from southwestern Idaho to northwestern Montana is estimated to contain 59% of the estimated mean undiscovered molybdenum resource.
Files available for downloading:
View README file (8 kb).
Download Open-File Report 95-682, Executive Summary as PDF file (624 kb). Download and read the 27 page long executive summary before deciding to download the entire rather lengthy report.
Download Open-File Report 95-682, entire report as a 432-page PDF file (6 MB)
Download the Permissive and Favorable Tracts Datasets in compressed tar (**.tar.Z) Arc/Info Export format (5.7 MB compressed, 11 MB uncompressed).
Download Additional Datasets needed to re-create the paper map in a GIS. This file is in UNIX compressed tar format (**.tar.Z). These files include 3 coverages in Arc/Info Export format for the study area boundaries, state boundaries within the study area, and 1:2,000,000 scale lat/long corner ticks (144 kb download, 504 kb uncompressed).
Download Text and AML files needed to re-create paper maps at a scale of 1:2,000,000. This file is in UNIX compressed tar format (**.tar.Z) and includes 5 ASCII files of Arc/Info plot AMLs, a key file, and explanatory text (16 kb download, 48 kb uncompressed).
For questions about the scientific content of this report, contact Art Bookstrom
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Updated: August 28, 2007 (bwr, mfd)