Gold, silver, and mercury rock chemistry for the Adelaide Mining District, Sonoma Range, Humboldt County, Nevada

A rock geochemical survey of the Adelaide Mining District which is in north-central Nevada, about 16 kilometers south of Golconda, Nevada, shows varied patterns of gold, silver and mercury distributions. High gold values are present (1) along the Adelaide fault system, (2) in hydrothermally altered areas scattered throughout the district, and (3) in a copper skarn near the east edge of the mining district. Gold was not detected in any of the several jasperoid samples which were analyzed at detection limits of 0.1 ppm. Silver is enriched throughout the mining district and may have been enriched in certain types of rock within unaltered Lower Cambrian to Lower Ordovician Preble Formation, given an unaltered chert nodule contained 14 ppm silver. Mercury distribution, is probably related to the hydrothermal alteration, but individual anomalies of mercury are discontinuous and do not show distinct patterns as commonly present in many other mining