The springs near Ruby Marsh have a long history and were first described by Bidwell (1842) as being "boiling hot"; Bidwell's party reportedly used them to cook meat. Audiomagnetotelluric data for the Ruby Valley Known Geothermal Resource Area were reported by Long and Batzle (1976b) and by Batzle and others (1976b). Mariner and others report a spring temperature of 65ºC with an estimated reservoir temperature of 72ºC and 71ºC using the silica and Na-K-Ca geothermometers, respectively (1983, p. 98, 105).