Location
This district is in west-central Plumas County about eight miles west of Quincy. It includes the Edmanton, Buck's Lake, Spanish Peak and Spanish Ranch areas. The Quincy district lies just to the east and the Granite Basin district to the southwest. The district was mined from the gold rush days through the early 1900s and has been prospected since.
Geology
The east portion of the district is underlain by quartzite, slate, schist, limestone, amphibolite, and serpentine. Meadow Valley is covered by Pleistocene lake beds. Granite lies to the west. There are a number of scattered patches of auriferous Tertiary gravel, in the vicinity of and northwest of Spanish Ranch, which were mined by hydraulicking and drifting. The Pleistocene lake gravels also yielded some gold. The only source of lode gold was the Diadem mine.
Bibliography
Lindgren, Waldemar. 1911, Tertiary gravels of the Sierra Nevada: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 73, pp. 98-99.
MacBoyle, Errol, 1920, Plumas County, Edmonton and Spanish Ranch mining districts: California Min. Bur. Rept. 16, pp. 8-12 and 46-49.
Turner, H. W., 1898, Bidwell Bar folio, California: U.S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas of the U.S., folio 43, 6 pp.
