NEVADA'S CARLIN TREND

AMERICA’S GREATEST GOLD-MINING DISTRICT

- STEVE VOYNICK

Events of the past few decades have rewritten the history of American gold mining. California billed as the “Golden State,” no longer leads all states in cumulative gold production. Taking its place is Nevada, which, ironically, is known as the “Silver State.”

Since 1983, Nevada has hosted America’s greatest gold mining boom ever. During those 35 years, the state has produced 200 million troy ounces (6,250 metric tons) of gold with a cumulative, year-mined value of roughly $140 billion. To put these figures into perspective, recall that in 1852, the California gold rush’s peak year, miners recovered 2.5 million troy ounces of gold. This year, Nevada will produce more than five million troy ounces—and has done so for the past 28 consecutive years.

Nevada, which accounts for 80 percent of the United States’ current annual gold output, has produced nearly half of all the gold ever mined in the nation. If Nevada were a country, it would now rank fourth in annual world gold production. And most of Nevada’s gold has come—and is still coming—from a five-mile-wide, 40-mile-long strip of land called the Carlin Trend that is the world’s third-richest gold-mining district of all time.

Nevada’s gold mining adventure began in 1849, with a series of minor placer strikes that went unnoticed in the shadow of the California gold rush. But in 1859, small-scale placer-gold mining led to the discovery of the Com- stock Lode, when sluice boxes became clogged with heavy, black sands that were identified as oxidized silver minerals. As the nation’s first major source of silver, the Comstock Lode gave Nevada both statehood and its “Silver State” nickname.