The Monte Neva (Melvin, Goodrich) Hot Springs in SW¼ Sec. 24, NW¼ Sec. 25, T21N, R63E on the west edge of Steptoe Valley, approximately 24 km north of the community of McGill, are by far the hottest in White Pine County. Although a temperature of 89.4°C was reported by Stearns and others (1937, no. 98) other observers reported the temperature as 79°C in 1917 (Clark and others, 1920, p. 47), again in 1966 (Mifflin, 1968), and in 1974 (Hose and Taylor, 1974), with 77.6°C being measured at one spring in Sec. 24 in June 2002. This spring flows from under a 2.5-m terrace, and was sampled during the 2002 visit. Chalcedony geothermometers indicate temperatures near the discharge temperature and are not reliable for estimating deep, subsurface temperatures.
There is one main spring plus several smaller ones, all issuing from alluvium. The main spring flowed 2,366 L/min in 1917 (Clark and others, 1920, p. 47). A 6- to 12-m-high mound of travertine, covering about 5 hectares, has been built up. Mineral water is presently being deposited, and considerable CO2(?) gas is escaping from the springs. Some travertine from pools is reported to be anomalously radioactive (about 200 counts/sec above background; (G. Dixon, oral commun., 1980). Magma Power Co. drilled a 123-m well at the springs in 1965. Hot water but no steam was encountered; the maximum temperature reported was 88°C (Koenig, 1971), which is not significantly elevated relative to surface discharge temperature. W.H. Hunt Company drilled a 1,373.4 m well in 1979 (Schellbourne No. 74-23) and encountered a maximum temperature of 90.5ºC. W.H. Hunt company exploration continued into the early 1980s (Robinson and Pugsley, 1981, p. 27). Audiomagnetotelluric data for the geothermal area is reported in Long and Batzle (1976a).
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