AMERICAN SCENE, Page 21The Carlin Trend, NevadaThere's Holes in Them Thar Hills
A rush for invisible gold leaves visible scars in the mountains
By J. Madeleine Nash
Range after rocky range, the mountains of northern Nevada soar
above the arid flats. From the air their sagebrush cloaks seem as
soft as crumpled velvet. Suddenly a series of gigantic holes looms
below, so huge that if they were the size of anthills, the ore
trucks and bulldozers scurrying over them would be the smallest of
ants. "Some people see these holes and think they're hideous,"
muses John Livermore, a tall, lanky exploration geologist from
Reno. "Others think how wonderful it is that man can do something
so big."
The motive for these mountainous excavations: gold. In 1961
Livermore, then working for the Newmont Mining Corp., made a
seminal discovery. He looked for gold in the "windows" of a
geological feature known as the Carlin Trend. Windows occur where
<<HEADER>>
by an uplift, have eroded toexpose the rock below. When Livermore cut into a window on theCarlin Trend, he hit what nongeologists took to calling invisiblegold.@P Millions of years ago, hot springs laden with flecks of goldboiled up through deep fractures in the earth's crust. But thegolden residue did not accumulate in rich veins. Instead, ingeologists' lingo, it "disseminated" throughout the siltstone andlimestone laid down by an ancient ocean. Small wonder, then, thatold-time prospectors overlooked it. "This gold," marvels Livermore,"is so fine you just can't pan it. You can't even see it under anordinary microscope."@P To extract gold from such low-grade deposits, miners must crushtons and tons of rock, which is piled into mammoth heaps andirrigated with cyanide. The cyanide percolates through the heap,extracting the gold. In the early days of the invisible-gold rush,a ton of ore might contain a few tenths of an ounce of gold. Todaythat minuscule amount would b
continue to roam the state, creating newnetworks of rutted roads. Exploration rigs continue to punch holesinto the earth a thousand feet deep. In the mining boom towns alongInterstate 80, schools are overflowing, crime has increased andbusiness is good. "Ultimately," predicts Miller, "there could beone continuous hole in the ground that extends tens of miles alongthe Carlin Trend."@P In many cases, the gold mines are located in remote, desolateregions. But some impinge on popular campsites, and one, ominousas a shark with wide-open jaws, is poised right on the edge of thetiny town of Tuscarora (permanent pop. 12). Julie Parks, wife ofthe local potter, fears that the mine is getting ready to swallowthe town. First to disappear was the town swimming hole, awater-filled shaft left over from an earlier mining boom. "It's acrazy thing that's going on here," she exclaims. "I'm living in aplace that may be gobbled up by a mine."@P Not far from Tuscarora, rancher Robin Van Norman drives avisitor into a verdant canyon sited down by U.S. Forest Serviceland in the Independence Mountains. Until gold was discovered, theVan Normans owned the rights to graze their cattle there. Now, onthe very fence they built to control their herd, theFreeport-McMoRan Gold Co. has posted a big KEEP OUT sign. Wasterock from the mining operation has begun pushing toward the canyonlike a moraine advancing at the prow of a glacier.@P Van Norman complains that his own land is not safe. Explorationcrews have combed his family's 40,000-acre spread. Where the VanNormans hold only surface rights, the crews have staked whiteplastic plumbing pipes as claim to the minerals below. Van Normansneeringly refers to the claim stakes as "toilet-paper pipes." Thezigzagging roads left by the exploration crews he doesn't like mucheither. "These terrible Zorro roads," he says, "are everywhere."What riles Van Norman most is the insult to the land. "We grew upwith the belief that if you took care of the land, it would takecare of you," he sermonizes. "In this world, there is only one cropof land."@P Three miles down the road is Robin Van Norman's nearestneighbor, Jim Wright. From his house Wright can gaze up at a ruggedoutcropping where Freeport has found a modest ore body. If the siteis mined, Wright worries, what will happen to a gurgling, gushingspring that forms the headwaters of Niagara Creek, which in turnfills a large reservoir Wright uses to irrigate a wide green haymeadow?@P Nevada, by disposition, is a freewheeling state where almostanything goes. But lately Nevadans have begun to talk limits. Thissummer the state legislature passed the first mining-reclamationbill in its history. Already the more progressive companies haveembarked on efforts to ameliorate the eyesores their miningoperations have created. The Pinson Mine on the Getchell Trend, inwhich Livermore has an interest, is actively transformingwaste-rock dumps into gently rolling hills planted with sagebrush,bitterbrush and crested wheat. Freeport-McMoRan, for its part, hashired a wildlife biologist to take charge of its reclamationactivities. It has laid ambitious plans to hide its footprints byrecontouring and reseeding old exploration roads, waste dumps andleaching heaps.@P But the holes are another matter. Many of them are so large itwould cost more than $100 million to fill them, which could, insome cases, wipe out the profits made from the mine. "Some peoplethink the holes should be filled in," acknowledges Livermore. "Butas a matter of public policy, what's the rationale for it? The onlyreal reason to fill in a hole is that people don't like the looksof it."@P Unfilled, the holes will become geological features persistingfor thousands of years until the slow hand of nature grinds thevery mountains down. At some future date, speculates biochemistMiller, the holes will turn into tourist attractions. Placards willexplain why they were dug
