Hi all,
Thought you might be interested in seeing a little more about mining in Nevada, USA. I downloaded a file from our United States Geological Survey and wrote some software to convert it to Google Earth waypoints. Blue pushpins are gemstone mines (turquoise, opal, etc), yellow pushpins are gold mines, and green pushpins are everything else. Clicking on each pushpin will show more details such as the primary commodity, type of ore, type of host rock, and type of production.
You will notice that we have a LOT of mines. It's a great resource for deciding where we want to head out exploring or prospecting. I'll probably write another program to create a GPX file to download into a GPS so we can have our info while we are on the move.
You will need Google Earth to be able to view the mines. I'm going to run all of the western states through my software so I can have files for each of the surrounding states.
Hope you enjoy seeing some of Nevada mining history.
www.mine-explorer.com/pictures/Nevada.kmz
Joanne