Soda Lake, 10 km northwest of Fallon, Nevada, was not identified as a geothermal resource until drilling for a water well encountered boiling water north of the lake in 1903. Some surface evidence of geothermal activity is present in sediments that demonstrate shallow subsurface boiling; a hot spring may have discharged at this site through the end of the nineteenth century.

Geothermal fluids in the Soda Lake area are believed to originate deep within the Carson Basin to the east and northeast and migrate horizontally along permeable sedimentary rock beds; a northeast striking fault is thought to allow vertical fluid migration between offset portions of a permeable pumice tuff unit that makes up the reservoir. In April 2002, a new 1,500-m production well began drilling.