Mercuryville, California become a ghost town. One of the last remaining large mine buildings was burned in wildfires in the mid-1970s, although some concrete structures and metalwork from the mines remain. Mercuryville, California Mercuryville, California is a ghost town in the Mayacamas Mountains along The Geysers road. Mercuryville was founded in 1874, after cinnabar, a mercury bearing ore, was discovered in eastern Sonoma County around 1870. Mercury is a dense liquid metal that can be used to separate gold from other less dense materials and the California Gold Rush, which had begun only 20 years earlier, increased the demand and price of
Carbonate-hosted lead-zinc ore deposits brines (10-30 wt.% NaCl equivalent) with pH's of 4.5-5 (buffered by host carbonates). This hydrothermal fluid may or may not carry the required sulfur to form sulfide minerals. Mobile hydrocarbons may have played a role in delivering reduced sulfur to certain MVT systems, while methane and other organic matter can potentially reduce sulfate carried by an acidic fluid. The ore fluid is suspected to be derived from clastic red bed sequences (potential metal source) that contain evaporites (potential sulfur source). Two potential transportation mechanisms for the metal-bearing ore fluid have been proposed. The first involves compaction of sediments in basins