Gold Butte is the name of a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...

and nearby mountain peak in Clark County, Nevada. Both are protected as part of the

Gold Butte National Monument Gold Butte National Monument is a United States national monument located in Clark County, Nevada, northeast of Las Vegas and south of Mesquite and Bunkerville. The monument protects nearly 300,000 acres of desert landscapes featuring a wide ...

, managed by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

. Gold Butte, the mountain, is high and rises above the town of Gold Butte. This peak lies within the

Virgin Mountains The Virgin Mountains are a mountain range of the northeastern Mojave Desert, located in Clark County, southeastern Nevada and Mohave County, northwestern Arizona. Geography Virgin Peak, at in elevation, is the highest point in the range. The r ...

and its name apparently refers to the Gold Butte Mining District.Carlson, H.S., 1974. ''Nevada place names: a geographical dictionary.'' University of Nevada Press. ISBN 0-87417--094-X''GNIS Feature Detail Report for: Gold Butte (historical).''
Retrieved December 31, 2016''GNIS Feature Detail Report for: Gold Butte.''
Retrieved December 31, 2016

Geology

The

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...

of the landscape around Gold Butte (the butte) and nearby Bonelli Peak consist of gray,

Proterozoic The Proterozoic () is a geological eon spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8million years ago. It is the most recent part of the Precambrian "supereon". It is also the longest eon of the Earth's geologic time scale, and it is subdivided ...

porphyritic Porphyritic is an adjective used in geology to describe igneous rocks with a distinct difference in the size of mineral crystals, with the larger crystals known as phenocrysts. Both extrusive and intrusive rocks can be porphyritic, meaning all ...

perthite Perthite is used to describe an intergrowth of two feldspars: a host grain of potassium-rich alkali feldspar (near K-feldspar, KAlSi3O8, in composition) includes exsolved lamellae or irregular intergrowths of sodic alkali feldspar (near albite, Na ...

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

-biotite

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

s and

quartz monzonite Quartz monzonite is an intrusive, felsic, igneous rock that has an approximately equal proportion of orthoclase and plagioclase feldspars. It is typically a light colored phaneritic (coarse-grained) to porphyritic granitic rock. The plagioclase ...

s that are also classified as rapakivi granite. These granites, which are collectively called the ''Gold Butte Granite'', intrude

garnet Garnets () are a group of silicate minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives. All species of garnets possess similar physical properties and crystal forms, but differ in chemical composition. The different s ...

- cordierite- sillimanite and hornblende

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

es, migmatites, and older granites,

pyroxenite Pyroxenite is an ultramafic igneous rock consisting essentially of minerals of the pyroxene group, such as augite, diopside, hypersthene, bronzite or enstatite. Pyroxenites are classified into clinopyroxenites, orthopyroxenites, and the websteri ...

s, and

hornblendite Hornblendite is a plutonic rock consisting mainly of the amphibole hornblende. Hornblende-rich ultramafic rocks are rare and when hornblende is the dominant mineral phase they are classified as hornblendites with qualifiers such as garnet hornble ...

s.Volborth, A. 1962. ''Rapakivi-type granites in the Precambrian complex of Gold Butte, Clark county, Nevada.'' Geological Society of America Bulletin, 73(7), pp. 813-832. East of Gold Butte, these Proterozoic medium-to high-grade metamorphic and

plutonic Intrusive rock is formed when magma penetrates existing rock, crystallizes, and solidifies underground to form '' intrusions'', such as batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, and volcanic necks.Intrusive RocksIntrusive rocks accessdate: March ...

rocks are unconformably overlain by of steeply east-dipping

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic matter, organic particles at Earth#Surface, Earth's surface, followed by cementation (geology), cementation. Sedimentati ...

rocks. Together, these plutonic, metamorphic, and sedimentary

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...

comprise a fault-bounded segment of crust known as the ''Gold Butte Block''. The landscapes, of which Gold Butte is a part, within Gold Butte block represents the deeply eroded footwall of a

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

detachment fault that provides a continuous outcrop of a section of the upper Earth's crust that is approximately thick. Thus, Gold Butte lies near the base of possibly the longest continuously exposed section of the Earth's crust in the southwestern United States.Fryxell, J. E.; Salton, G. G.; Selverstone, J.; and Wernicke, B. 1992. ''Gold Butte crustal section, South Virgin Mountains, Nevada.'' Tectonics, 11, pp. 1099–1120.Wernicke, B. and Axen, G.J. 1988. ''On the role of isostasy in the evolution of normal fault systems.'' Geology, 16(9), pp.848-851.Wernicke, B. 1992. ''Cenozoic extensional tectonics of the U.S. Cordillera.'' In Burchfiel, B. C.; Lipman, P.W.; and Zoback, M. L., eds. ''The Cordilleran Orogen: conterminous U.S.'' (Geology of North America, Vol. G-3). Boulder, CO, Geol. Soc. Am., p. 553–581. Fryxell and Duebendorfer argued that the strata comprising Frenchman Mountain originated as the hanging wall that originally overlied the now tectonically exhumed Gold Butte block. It was during the Miocene, that these strata were translated to their present position by movement along detachment and

strike-slip fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

s.Fryxell, J.E. and Duebendorfer, E.M. 2005. ''Origin and trajectory of the Frenchman Mountain block, an extensional allochthon in the Basin and Range Province, southern Nevada.'' The Journal of Geology, 113(3), pp.355-371

History

Gold Butte, Nevada is part of the Gold Butte mining district, which includes the territory south of Gold Butte lying between the Nevada-Arizona state line to the east and the Virgin River (now Lake Mead) to the west. Daniel Bonelli discovered mica in this area in 1873. Gold was discovered here in 1905. There was a rush of people to Gold Butte from 1905 to 1906. The settlement contained a post office, hotel, livery stable, store and homes. The total mining production from the Gold Butte district was $75,000. There was prospecting and small-scale mining for gold,

mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...

magnesite Magnesite is a mineral with the chemical formula (magnesium carbonate). Iron, manganese, cobalt, and nickel may occur as admixtures, but only in small amounts. Occurrence Magnesite occurs as veins in and an alteration product of ultramafic ro ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

and zinc. No significant deposits were found. By December 1910, most mining had completely halted and the town was abandoned. Little remains today at the site: a couple of foundations, two graves, and several old mine shafts.

The Bundy standoff

The Bundy standoff, which pertains in part to the Gold Butte area, was caused in spring 2014 as the result of a 20-year-old land use disagreement between the

and Cliven Bundy, a local rancher.

United States Senator The United States Senate is the Upper house, upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives being the Lower house, lower chamber. Together they compose the national Bica ...

from Nevada Harry Reid (1939-2021), along with local business leaders and conservation groups, campaigned to make Gold Butte and the surrounding area into National Conservation Area. On December 28, 2016, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

established

, protecting the public lands surrounding Gold Butte.

Notes

External links

Friends of Gold Butte
{{Coord, 36.281, -114.201, type:city_region:US-NV, display=title Ghost towns in Clark County, Nevada 1908 establishments in Nevada Populated places established in 1908 Gold mining in Nevada Gold Butte National Monument

Geology

History

The Bundy standoff

See also

Notes

External links