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.

The Rye Patch (Humboldt, or Humboldt House) geothermal area is located in the Humboldt River valley 50 km north of Lovelock, Nevada. Humboldt House was founded there in 1868 as an eating station along the Central Pacific Railroad. No thermal springs are present at the surface in the area, but sinter (evaporative deposits) is visible nearby.

The Wabuska geothermal area is located at the margin of Mason Valley, in Lyon County, Nevada, where both the valley margin and the thermal springs coincide with a northeast-trending zone of faults referred to as the Wabuska lineament. Hot springs, about 1.6 km north of Wabuska, range in temperature from 59 to 72°C and occur over a large area. Gas bubbles issue from the pools with a faint odor of H2S. The springs occur along an east-west line that coincides with the course of a post-Lahontan fault, which is plainly shown by an irregular scarp, in some places 6 m high.

The San Emidio Desert is an area of major displacement of a fault southwest of Gerlach, Nevada. Geothermal potential in the San Emidio Desert was unknown until the late 1960s, when exploration drilling for sulfur along the east side of the desert encountered hot water. An approximately 4.4 km long zone, presumably the surface expression of a fault, exhibited hydrothermal alteration and the presence of mercury and sulfur, but no surface springs were present. Water in shallow drill hole–1 m below ground surface–had a temperature of 53C.