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Geologic map of the Caliente Quadrangle, Lincoln County, Nevada
 
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Title: Geologic map of the Caliente Quadrangle, Lincoln County, Nevada

Author: Peter D. Rowley, Lawrence W. Snee, R. Ernest Anderson, Ralph R. Shroba, and F. William Simonds
Year: 2025
Series: Open-file reports
Version: 2025-03
Format: 30" x 43" color map, text, 32 pages
Scale: 1:24,000

This geologic map is one of two geologic quadrangles of the Caliente caldera complex to be published in 2025 by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology (NBMG); two other quadrangles (Rowley et al., 2023a, b) were published in 2023 by NBMG, and three more are anticipated. These resulted from mapping and related petrologic, geochemical, and isotopic studies by the authors that were funded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in the late 1980s to middle 1990s. The mapping was part of a large USGS project named the Basin and Range to Colorado Plateau Transition (BARCO) study in southeastern Nevada, southwestern Utah, and northwestern Arizona. Mapping was to be published by the USGS at detailed (1:24,000) scale, then compiled in 1:100,000-scale quadrangles. The project ended in early 1995 during the USGS Reduction in Force (RIF).

One of the subprojects of BARCO was a study of the Caliente caldera complex and its gold deposits, led by the senior author. Mapping at 1:24,000 scale began at the western end of the caldera complex but only three quadrangles were published (Rowley and Shroba, 1991; Rowley et al., 1994; Swadley and Rowley, 1994). Abstracts cited here and summary reports (e.g., Rowley et al., 1992, 1995, 2001; Best et al., 1993; Hudson et al., 1995, 1998; Nealey et al., 1995; Unruh et al., 1995; Scott et al., 1995a, b) were also prepared before the RIF, with some published after. The seven quadrangles we have or will complete were mapped but never published. We also intend to publish with NBMG many 40Ar/39Ar dates by L.W. Snee, most of them from rocks in the caldera complex, that were never released in final form (e.g., Snee et al., 1990; Snee and Rowley, 2000). Funding from the USGS STATEMAP program awarded to NBMG has permitted synthesis and completion of our research in the area and publication of these quadrangles.

The physiography of the Caliente quadrangle is dominated by Rainbow Canyon, containing a perennial stream, Meadow Valley Wash, that flows from the northeastern corner to the southern edge of the map area. The town of Caliente (population 990 as of 2020) serviced and supplied water and fuel for the engines of the railroad from 1903 to 2005. The town sits within the caldera complex in the bottom of the canyon in the northeastern corner of the map area, where Newman Canyon joins Rainbow Canyon from the west and the canyon of Clover Creek joins Rainbow Canyon from the east. About 2 km south of the town of Caliente, the Kershaw-Ryan State Park is small but lovely, along lower Kershaw Canyon, an eastern side canyon to Rainbow Canyon. It is the site of a former ranch,established in 1873 by Samuel and Hannah Kershaw. At the eastern up-canyon edge of the state park, a picnic ground is adjacent to a small pond from a spring, the northeast wall of which is a delight for geologists: a reddish-brown cliff of ash-flow tuff displaying subhorizontal slickenlines from a left-lateral fault that causes, and passes northwest through, the spring. The low range west of Rainbow Canyon consists of the Delamar Mountains, and the low range east of the canyon is the Clover Mountains, but the rocks on both sides of the canyon are the same, namely subhorizontal tuffs and sedimentary rocks making up the upper part of the Caliente caldera fill. Most of the tuffs, extending for thousands of meters below the surface, are intracaldera tuffs derived from the Caliente caldera complex, but at the surface these tuffs are overlain by outflow tuffs from calderas to the south and east, as well as intertonguing sedimentary rocks that filled the remaining basin formed by caldera subsidence. The other map to be published this year, the Elgin NE quadrangle to the south (Rowley et al., 2025), contains southern Rainbow Canyon, which cuts through most of the same rocks and mountain ranges as in the Caliente quadrangle.

Three of the previously published quadrangles are northwest, north, and northeast of the Caliente quadrangle, respectively: the Caliente NW (Rowley et al., 2023b), Chief Mountain (Rowley et al., 1994), and Indian Cove (Rowley and Shroba, 1991) quadrangles, respectively. These describe the geology of the northern edge of the Caliente caldera complex and the basins and ranges north of the edge. The Chief Mountain quadrangle also contains the small Chief gold mining district. West of the Caliente quadrangle, the Chokecherry Mountain quadrangle (Rowley et al., 2023a) contains two calderas of the Caliente caldera complex that underlie the Delamar Mountains, and west of the Chokecherry Mountain quadrangle, the Pahroc Spring SE quadrangle (Swadley and Rowley, 1994) describes the western edge of the Delamar Mountains and the Caliente caldera complex.

Suggested Citation: Rowley, P.D., Snee, L.W., Anderson, R.E., Shroba, R.R., and Simonds, F.W., 2025, Geologic map of the Caliente quadrangle, Lincoln County, Nevada: Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Open-File report 2025-03, scale 1:24,000, 32 p.

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Original Product Code: OF2025-03