GOLD PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES

Edwin H. McKee

The United States jumped from the world’s 6th largest to 2nd largest producer of gold because of the discovery and production from the state of Nevada in the 1970s and 1980s. Nevada's gold now accounts for about 90 percent of the U.S. total. Key to this enormous increase in gold discovery in Nevada were geologic concepts resulting from studies by USGS geologists based in Menlo Park. These studies in Nevada, in the late 1950s and 1960s, recognized a unique geologic framework that served as the guide for exploration by nongovernment geologists from many mining companies. A series of publications outlining the guiding concepts were published between 1957 and 1980, both before and in conjunction with the continually increasing discoveries of gold.

Summaries for the layman of this geologic success story are in the National Geographic, May 1968, v.133, no. 5, p. 668-679, and in an autobiography by Ralph J. Roberts, a USGS geologist, titled A Passion for Gold, University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada, 2002, pages 82-104.

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