Controls on endowment and prospectivity of the Sierra Foothills gold province, central California

Assessment of spatial relationships between the location, abundance and size of orogenic gold deposits in the highly-endowed Sierra Foothills gold province via a GIS-based analysis illustrates the power of such an approach to the genetic characterization of mineral systems and the prediction of areas likely to host economic mineralization. Results from regional stress mapping confirm empirical findings, highlight the close spatial relationship between gold deposits and first-order faults, and indicate the importance of structural permeability contrasts, rheological gradients, and variations in fault orientation (giving rise to dilational/compressional jogs) along first- and higher-order faults in localising mineralization. Although this approach has produced promising results at the province-scale, significantly enhanced geological, structural, geophysical and geochronological data density is required to enable the generation of regionally consistent, high-quality input layers that improve predictive goldfield-scale targeting.