Smartville Block

The collision created sufficient crustal heating to drive mineral-laden water up through numerous fissures along the contact zone.

Gold found in the Smartville Block and within the metamorphic belts of the Sierra Nevada foothills were created through hydrothermal processes.

Mineral rich groundwater is heated geothermally and injected towards the surface through fractures in the rock created from faulting.

Gold and other minerals are precipitated from this fluid and have accumulated in the Sierra Nevadan metamorphic belt region in features called veins.

[2] [1] The Smartville Block's eastern margin is the Rescue Lineament-Bear Mountains fault zone, and generally defines the range of gold-bearing veins of the Mother Lode region, important in the history of the California Gold Rush.