Gold mining in Nevada, a state of the United States, is a major industry, and one of the largest sources of gold in the world. In 2018 Nevada produced 5,581,160 troy ounces (173.6 tonnes), representing 78% of US gold and 5.0% of the world's production. [1] [2] [3] Total gold production recorded from Nevada from 1835 to 2017 totals 205,931,000 troy ounces (6,405.2 t), worth US$322.6 billion at 2020 values. [2] [4] Much of Nevada's gold production comes from large open pit mining using heap leaching recovery.
The Nevada mining industry supported an average 14,787 direct employees in 2018, with about 75,000 additional jobs related to providing goods and services needed by the mining industry. The average pay for mining industry employees during this time was $97,600 per year, the third highest average private employment sector in the state. [2]
Major mining companies such as Newmont Goldcorp and Barrick Gold Corporation operate many of the state's gold mines. Active mines include those at Jerritt Canyon and the Carlin Trend.
Although Nevada was known much more for silver in the 19th century, many of the early silver mining districts also produced considerable quantities of gold. The Comstock Lode produced 8,600,000 troy ounces (270 t) of gold through 1959, and the Eureka district produced 1,200,000 troy ounces (37 t). The Robinson copper mine has produced well over 2,700,000 troy ounces (84 t) gold, along with over 4 billion pounds (1,500,000 tonnes) of copper.
Gold was discovered in the vicinity of Carlin in Eureka County in the 1870s, but production was small. Placer deposits were discovered in 1907, but the deposits were too small to cause much excitement. It was not until 1961 that Newmont Mining Corporation discovered the large low-grade gold deposit at Carlin that the mining industry began to take notice. The Carlin mine began producing gold in 1965, but at a gold price of US$35 per troy ounce, ore grades were still too low to cause a rush to northern Nevada. It was not until the gold price escalated in the 1970s that mining companies began to target similar deposits. [6]
The Carlin Trend, part of what is also known as the Carlin Unconformity, is 5 miles (8 km) wide and 40 miles (60 km) long running northwest–southeast, has since produced more gold than any other mining district in the United States. Production from the trend surpassed 50,000,000 troy ounces (1,600 t) of gold in 2002. The Carlin and other mines along the trend pioneered the method of open-pit mining with cyanide heap leach recovery that is today used at large low-grade gold mines worldwide.
New ore deposits are still being discovered and developed along the trend. The South Arturo deposit was discovered by Barrick Gold in 2005. The deposit contains an estimated 1,300,000 troy ounces (40 t) of gold. [7]
Goldfield was discovered in 1902, and began major gold production in 1904. The ore occurs in altered shear zones in Tertiary dacite and andesite. Total gold production through 1959 was 4,200,000 troy ounces (130 t). [8]
The Robinson district at Ely, Nevada produced about 3,000,000 troy ounces (93 t) of gold through 1990, as a byproduct of copper mining. [9]
In 2017 the Robinson Mine produced 112,633,428 pounds of copper, 37,897 troy ounces of gold and 652,763 pounds of molybdenite with 617 employees. [2]
All mineral and gold production on public and private lands in Nevada is subject to a Net Royalty payable to the State. The gross proceeds from the sale of minerals minus allowable deductions determine the taxable net proceeds. If the net proceeds from sales by a mine in the taxable year total $4 million or more, the tax rate is 5%. For less profitable mines the tax rate is graduated down to 2%. Miners' net proceeds are also subject to federal corporate income tax of 21%. [10] [11]
Because the NPM tax is an ad valorem property tax, the amount of the net proceeds times the property tax rate goes to the county where the mineral was extracted. Any additional amount of tax paid up to the 5% goes to the State. [10]
In 2017-2018 the Nevada net proceeds royalty raised $155.1 million (down from $255.6 million in 2012) from gold and silver production, of which the counties received $87.5 million (down from $127 million in 2012). [11]
Barrick Gold Corporation is a mining company that produces gold and copper with 16 operating sites in 13 countries. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has mining operations in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Mali, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, the United States and Zambia. In 2019, it produced 5.5 million ounces of gold at all-in sustaining costs of $894/ounce and 432 million pounds of copper at all-in sustaining costs of $2.52/pound. As of 31 December 2019, the company had 71 million ounces of proven and probable gold reserves.
Newmont, based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, United States, is the world's largest gold mining company. Incorporated in 1921, it has ownership of gold mines in Nevada, Colorado, Ontario, Quebec, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Australia, Ghana, Argentina, Peru, and Suriname. In addition to gold, Newmont mines copper, silver, zinc and lead.
Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface, has led to more complex extraction processes such as pit mining and gold cyanidation. In the 20th and 21st centuries, most volume of mining was done by large corporations, however the value of gold has led to millions of small, artisanal miners in many parts of the Global South.
Copper mining in the United States has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2017 the United States produced 1.27 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8 billion, making it the world's fourth largest copper producer, after Chile, China, and Peru. Copper was produced from 23 mines in the US. Top copper producing states in 2014 were Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana. Minor production also came from Idaho, and Missouri. As of 2014, the US had 45 million tonnes of known remaining reserves of copper, the fifth largest known copper reserves in the world, after Chile, Australia, Peru, and Mexico.
Gold mining in the United States has taken place continually since the discovery of gold at the Reed farm in North Carolina in 1799. The first documented occurrence of gold was in Virginia in 1782. Some minor gold production took place in North Carolina as early as 1793, but created no excitement. The discovery on the Reed farm in 1799 which was identified as gold in 1802 and subsequently mined marked the first commercial production.
Silver mining in the United States began on a major scale with the discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1858. The industry suffered greatly from the demonetization of silver in 1873 by the Coinage Act of 1873, known pejoratively as the "Crime of 73", but silver mining continues today.
Gold mining in Colorado, a state of the United States, has been an industry since 1858. It also played a key role in the establishment of the state of Colorado.
Silver mining in Colorado has taken place since the 1860s. In the past, Colorado called itself the Silver State.
Silver mining in Nevada, a state of the United States, began in 1858 with the discovery of the Comstock Lode, the first major silver-mining district in the United States. Nevada calls itself the "Silver State." Nevada is the nation's second-largest producer of silver, after Alaska. In 2014 Nevada produced 10.93 million troy ounces of silver, of which 6.74 million ounces were as a byproduct of the mining of gold. The largest byproducers were the Hycroft Mine, the Phoenix Mine, the Midas Mine and Round Mountain.
The Getchell Mine is an underground gold mine in the Potosi Mining District of Humboldt County, Nevada, on the east flank of the Osgood Mountains, 35 miles northeast of Winnemucca. Prospectors Edward Knight and Emmet Chase discovered gold in 1933 and located the first claims in 1934. With the financial backing of Noble Getchell and George Wingfield, the Getchell Mine, Inc. was organized in 1936 and the mine was brought into production in 1938.
Gold mining in Alaska, a state of the United States, has been a major industry and impetus for exploration and settlement since a few years after the United States acquired the territory in 1867 from the Russian Empire. Russian explorers discovered placer gold in the Kenai River in 1848, but no gold was produced. Gold mining started in 1870 from placers southeast of Juneau, Alaska.
John Sealy Livermore was an American geologist who discovered or helped to discover four major gold deposits in northern Nevada.
The Carlin Unconformity or Carlin Trend is a geologic feature in northeastern Nevada which represents a period of erosion or non-deposition likely associated with a collision between a tectonic crustal block called a terrane and the North American Plate. The collision occurred during the Mississippian Period, about 350 million years before present. The collision is associated with the Antler Orogeny.
The Telfer Mine is a gold, copper and silver mine located at Telfer on the land of the Martu people, in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. It is owned by Newcrest Mining, the greatest gold producer listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Cortez Gold Mine is a large gold mining and processing facility in Lander and Eureka County, Nevada, United States, located approximately 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Elko. It is owned as a joint venture between Barrick Gold Corporation (61.5%) and Newmont Corporation (38.5%), operated by Barrick, and comprises the Pipeline, Crossroads, and Cortez Hills open pit mines; and the Cortez Hills underground mine. Ore from the mines is treated at an oxide mill at the site and on leach pads, while refractory ore is shipped to Barrick’s Goldstrike operation for processing.
There are different methods by which gold mining companies are ranked. One is by their annual production. Another is by their cash cost per ounce, that is, how much money it costs them to mine the gold. Since gold prices are the same everywhere, companies with lower costs per ounce make more profit. The most common method lists by market capitalization which considers the total value of capital holdings by that company. Also considered when comparing companies is their market capitalization per ounce of gold equivalent which takes the market value and total reserves and resources for each company as well as the price of gold into consideration. The figures for each company can be used to determine the value the stock market gives to each company's reserves on an ounce to ounce basis.
Goldstrike is a gold mine in Eureka County in north-eastern Nevada. It is located on the Carlin Trend, a prolific gold mining district. It is owned and operated by Barrick Gold. Since Barrick acquired Goldstrike in 1986, until 2018 it produced 44.4 million ounces of gold.
The Robinson Mine is a porphyry copper deposit located at Ruth, White Pine County, Nevada, in the Egan Range, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Ely. The mine comprises three large open pits: Liberty, Tripp-Veteran and Ruth. The ore is extracted using conventional surface methods, and is then processed into a copper-gold concentrate, and a molybdenum concentrate in a concentrating plant. Since 2012 the mine has been owned and operated by Polish copper miner KGHM Polska Miedź
Nevada Gold Mines was formed on July 1, 2019, as a joint venture between Barrick Gold Corporation and Newmont Corporation through the combination of their significant gold mining assets across northern Nevada. The assets in Nevada Gold Mines include 10 underground mines and 12 surface mines as well as related facilities. Barrick Gold is the operator of Nevada Gold Mines, and plans 200 MW of Ohio-made solar panels for 2023.