Hot springs are found in SW¼ SE¼ Sec. 29 and SE¼ NE¼ Sec. 32, T36N, R40E near the town of Golconda, and hot water is known from a drill hole at the Golconda tungsten mine in Sec. 36, T36N, R40E.
Several springs are reported at Golconda Hot Springs, with temperatures of 42.8-73.9°C. Temperatures between 29 and 61°C were recorded from several low-flow seeps in the area in September 2002, and samples were collected from a 46.6 and 61°C spring. Geothermometer temperatures are low, with the Na-K-Ca indicating a maximum of 86°C, and the chalcedony indicating a similar temperature of 81°C.
The area was famous as a resort and health center where early settlers often spent several weeks at its large hotel drinking and bathing in the mineral waters (Miller and others, 1953). Trexler and others (1981) reported that the Sec. 29 springs north of Golconda are referred to as Segerstrom's Hot Springs.
In the early 1880s, Adams and Bishop (1884) reported that farmers in the vicinity used the springs for scalding swine. The swimming area at that time was a hole excavated in the ground. The water was also used for irrigation, and radishes, lettuce, onions, etc. were raised early in the growing season due to the warmth produced by the hot-spring water. A 53-m-deep well drilled in 1940 was used from 1940 to 1945 for water in the chemical plant treating the tungsten-iron-manganese ores from the Golconda Mine, 6.4 km to the east (D.I. Segerstrom, written commun., 1972). For many years the water from this well was used for health baths at the Golconda Hot Springs Hotel.
Penrose (1893) reported that the deposits of Golconda Hot Springs were highly charged with manganese oxides. Some of the areas around the hot spring vents are anomalously radioactive, up to 175 µR/hr (Wollenberg, 1974b), and thorium may be present in the water (D.I. Segerstrom, written commun., 1972). Also, a few parts per million tungsten are reported.
The spring deposits at the Golconda Hot Springs are reported to consist of travertine, and an estimate of the thermal reservoir temperature using the silica geothermometer is 115°C (Mariner and others, 1974). Basalt flows younger than 6 Ma are present about 4 km south of the Hot Springs area (Stewart and Carlson, 1976).
At the tungsten-manganese deposits of the Golconda Mine in Sec. 36, T36N, R40E, as much as 2 m of tungsten bearing ferruginous and locally manganiferous clayey gravel rests on steeply dipping Cambrian rocks. Much of the ore is overlain by up to 6 m of travertine. The tungsten is believed to have been deposited from water emerging from a fissure in phyllite beneath the deposit, and the travertine was deposited from spring waters issuing from a parallel fissure in limestone upslope from the tungsten deposit (White, 1955, p. 136). In a few places, travertine underlies the ore, and although the relative age of the travertine and tungsten deposits is not completely clear, White (1955) believed that they were deposited contemporaneously. Barium occurs within the manganiferous tungsten deposits, and barite nodules have been found locally in the travertine. Analyses of the ore indicate that it is anomalous in Co, Nb, Ni, As, Be, Ge, and Th (Ralph Erickson, personal commun., 1971).
The most likely explanation for this deposit seems to be that it is of hot-springs origin, deposited at or very near the present land surface. A 78.6-m-deep drill hole at the mine contained marcasite throughout its entire depth (D.I. Segerstrom, written commun., 1972), another indication of deposition at shallow depth and low temperature. The bedded deposit is underlain by scheelite-b caring skarn rocks, and remobilization of tungsten and arsenic could account for all of the metallization associated with the hot-spring water (Berger and others, 1974).
The Golconda tungsten-manganese deposit has been interpreted as being related to the high-water stage of Lake Lahontan (see Willden, 1964, p. 111). Although the deposits are about 30 m above the highest late Pleistocene shoreline (Kerr, 1940), the springs that formed these deposits probably had their greatest discharge when the lake level and surrounding groundwater levels were high (Willden, 1964). This relationship with Pleistocene Lake Lahontan would make the deposit very young, probably less than 50,000 years old. Erickson and Marsh (written commun. in Berger and others, 1975) suggest that the deposit is the result of spring activity <5 Ma.
A drill hole in the C SW¼ Sec. 36, T36N, R40E at the site of the Golconda Mine has a temperature of 61.7°C at 67 m. As there was considerable marcasite encountered in this hole, the temperature could be due to oxidation of sulfide minerals (D.I. Segerstrom, written commun., 1972). A spring about 183 m to the northeast of this well is reported to flow 6.8 L/min of 20.5°C water.
Photos
Golconda hot spring area looking southwest.
Golconda Hot spring (G-1) showing water sampling (46.6°C).
Lisa Shevenell and Thijs van Soest sampling Golconda Hot Spring (G-1; 46.6°C).
Close up of Golconda Hot spring (G-2) with water sampling tubing. Hottest pool with most visible flow. (61°C).
View of Golconda hot springs area (G-2); the distant pool is cooler (29°C).
Hot-water pool at Golconda Hot Springs, Humboldt County.
Golconda Hot Springs.