The Ongoing Search for New Gold Deposits in the United States and the Historical Legacy of Gold Mining
1. Introduction
The extent of gold mineralization in the United States, where increases in gold discovery and production first drove the global economic growth of the 19th century, enhances the uniqueness of gold in the collective imagination. It is clearly a gold deposit that kept being discovered, not just built, given the right mix of geological setting and tectonics. With a focus on the attitudes of the gold mineralization of the United States, we stand to specifically motivate the scientific sense and the value for society of conducting detailed, (geo) genetic studies of a selected number of the best-known gold fields in the United States. Unfortunately, only our selection of gold deposits will be able to realize our desire to applaud as many of the most spectacular gold deposits in the United States as we have the space to include in print. Our apologies to the colleagues who felt upset for not being included in the chosen ones.
The search for new gold deposits has seen periodic episodes of setbacks, as well as successes driven by the application of new or improved exploration technologies. Even the discovery of new mining districts has been neither smooth nor continuous, but rather replaced by periods of consolidation of world-class mining districts, with periods of discovery of new deposits effectively sown and scattered within larger provinces. Attributes of the successful exploration model become recognizable with hindsight but offer little guidance in real time. A new period of successful gold exploration might now be close, with the confluence of new geophysical and geochemical technologies, which are increasingly focused on understanding gold as a metal accounting for the fire on the deepest human wanderings. At the same time, the strong defense for the financial markets has just entered a new phase.