It has been extensively studied and this attention has resulted in the generation of a comprehensive collection of spatial and non-spatial geoscience data. These data characterize the nature of the lithosphere in the Great Basin and collectively represent a vertical sampling from the earth's surface to the upper mantle. The Great Basin physiographic province in the western United States has emerged as one of the most important precious metal-producing areas of the world. The richest portion of this province lies within the State of Nevada. The Great Basin is broad region of extension in the earth's lithosphere characterized by regionally extensive normal, thrust, and strike-slip fault systems.
Most deposits occur in the western half of the state.
In comparison to the medium and large occurrences, the small occurrences generally are hosted by a wider variety of lithologies, which include more sedimentary rock types. In addition to these strong associations, statistically significant host rocks for occurrences of any size include silicious igneous and sedimentary units, felsic to intermediate extrusive units, granitic plutons, and ultramafic rocks. Lithologies hosting medium occurrences are weakly gradational between lithologies hosting small occurrences and those hosting large occurrences. Rocks of high posterior probability for medium and large occurrences highlight regions of known mineralization in the Carlin and Battle Mountain-Eureka trends, and in the Independence group area. Posterior probability maps of mineral potential, based on the spatial association of gold-sliver occurrences to the diversity of lithology within a 2.5 2.5 km grid cell, show that the posterior probability of an occurrence of any size increases with increasing geology map class diversity.