Carlin Unconformity

The Carlin Unconformity or Carlin Trend is a geologic feature in northeastern Nevada which represents a period of erosion or non-deposition likely associated with a collision between a tectonic crustal block called a terrane and the North American Plate. The collision occurred during the Devonian Era, about 350 million years B.P. The collision is associated with what is sometimes referred to as the Antler Orogeny.

The collision induced higher crustal temperatures and pressures which produced numerous hot springs along the suture zone. Several episodes of subsurface magmatism are known to have occurred subsequent to the collision, associated with tectonic forces affecting the entire Basin and Range. During each of these episodes, and particularly during the Eocene epoch, hot springs brought dissolved minerals toward the surface, precipitating them out along fissures. Among these minerals were gold and silver.

ee also

* Carlin, Nevada
*Gold mining in Nevada

References

* "Basin and Range", by John McPhee, published 1981 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.
* "Assembling California", by John McPhee, published 1993 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.
*http://econgeol.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/2/347