History & Geology
Colorado Uranium Mining in the 1950s Boom
March 2021 by John Norman
You can learn a lot from a small mining operation because you have to become proficient in every job. Soon I was preparing fuses, placing powder (dynamite) and learning the ins and outs of drilling and blasting.
Confluence Placers
Confluences of placer streams are well known as concentration sites for heavy minerals. The basic reason is that...
Reno's 1872 Time Capsule Includes Gold Rush Lore
The Reno Masonic Lodge was built along the railroad tracks back when Ulysses S. Grant was president and shortly after the Comstock Lode of gold and silver was struck in Virginia City.
Exploring Iron Oxide Copper Gold Deposits
The excitement over IOCG deposits began with the discovery of a monster deposit at Olympic Dam in Australia in 1976. The discovery was accidental as the operator was searching for strata-bound copper deposits.
The Rochester Mining District of Nevada
Only the richest ores could be worked and shipped off for processing at a profit. As a result, early mining in the southern part of the Humboldt Range was short-lived. In the 1880s, placers were discovered in Spring Valley and American Valley on the east side of the range...
Round Mountain, Nevada
There are a number of veins in the disseminated mineralization, but the principle ones on Round Mountain are known as the Los Gazabo and the Keane.
Prospecting Homonyms
Three homonyms come to mind when I think of gemstones, gold and vegetables: carrot, carat and karat. Let’s look at carrot first.
Butte, Montana—The Richest Hill on Earth
I recently had the opportunity to spend a day exploring around Butte, Montana and was amazed by the amount of mining that has taken place there. The old-timers called Butte “the richest hill on earth” and had pretty good reasons for doing so.
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The Bawl Mill
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