Mount Tenabo (

Shoshoni The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshute: western Utah, easter ...

: "Lookout Mountain") is the principal peak in the

Cortez Mountains The Cortez Mountains are located in north central Nevada in the United States. The range lies in a southwest-northeasterly direction between Crescent Valley and Pine Valley. Mount Tenabo is the principal peak of the range, at 9,153 feet above sea l ...

. The mountain is of cultural and religious significance to the

Western Shoshone Western Shoshone comprise several Shoshone tribes that are indigenous to the Great Basin and have lands identified in the Treaty of Ruby Valley 1863. They resided in Idaho, Nevada, California, and Utah. The tribes are very closely related cultural ...

people.

Etymology

There are various theories as to the name's etymology. The mountain may have been named by New Mexicans after an ancient

pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

, or Tenabo may be a

Paiute Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three groups do not form a single set. The term "Pai ...

word, meaning of "dark colored water".

Geography

The summit elevation of Mount Tenabo is , which is above the surrounding valleys. Its base is covered with

scrub pine ''Pinus virginiana'', the Virginia pine, scrub pine, Jersey pine, Possum pine, is a medium-sized tree, often found on poorer soils from Long Island in southern New York south through the Appalachian Mountains to western Tennessee and Alabama. T ...

. The summit and below is overgrown with grass and shrubs. Approximately to the north is the

Humboldt River The Humboldt River is an extensive river drainage system located in north-central Nevada. It extends in a general east-to-west direction from its headwaters in the Jarbidge, Independence, and Ruby Mountains in Elko County, to its terminus in the ...

and its valley. Eastward, there are hills and valleys. To the west is the Smoky Valley, Mount Hope, Bunker Hill, and other peaks of the

Toiyabe Range The Toiyabe Range is a mountain range in Lander and Nye counties, Nevada, United States. Most of the range is included within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. The highest point in the range, near its southern end, is Arc Dome (11,788 ...

. Mount Tenabo, east of and near the north end of the Toiyabe Range, is about south of Beowawe. At an area approximately above the mountain's base, a vein of silver-bearing quartz cuts through obliquely, penetrating into the valley after for . Its width is . This vein (

stratum 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 ...

) contains ore beds, and is encased in crystalline

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

History

Silver ore was discovered at Mount Tenabo in 1862 by a group of New Mexicans. By the later half of the 1860s, there were at least 20 working mills. In 2008, the Te-Moak tribe, the

Timbisha The Timbisha ("rock paint", Timbisha language: Nümü Tümpisattsi) are a Native American tribe federally recognized as the Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California. They are known as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and are located in sout ...

tribe and others sought an emergency injunction that would have halted further development of

Barrick Gold 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, Democrati ...

's Cortez Hills mining operation which includes facilities on the slopes of Mount Tenabo. As of July 2016, mining continues while the

BLM BLM most commonly refers to: * Black Lives Matter, an international anti-racism movement and organization * Bureau of Land Management, a U.S. federal government agency BLM may also refer to: Organizations * BLM (law firm), United Kingdom and ...

prepares a court-ordered supplemental environmental impact statement.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Landforms of Eureka County, Nevada Tenabo