The Round Mountain Gold Mine is an

open pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

Round Mountain, Nevada Round Mountain is an unincorporated town in Nye County, Nevada, United States. The population of Round Mountain as of 2014 is 1,868. The town's ZIP code is 89045. Round Mountain is best known for the Round Mountain Gold Mine, a large open pit ...

. The mine is operated and owned by

Kinross Gold Kinross Gold Corporation is a Canadian-based gold mining, gold and silver mining company founded in 1993 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Kinross currently operates six active gold mines, and was ranked fifth of the "10 Top Gold-mining ...

History

Mining at Round Mountain occurred as early as 1906, using underground techniques. The mine produced 350,000 ounces of gold through underground mining over a sixty-year period, before converting to an open pit. In 2003 Kinross acquired 50% of the Round Mountain mine from

Echo Bay Mines Echo Bay Mines Limited was a Canadian company which was organized in 1964 by Northwest Explorers Limited to develop a silver deposit at Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada, which had been staked in 1930 by The Consolidated Mining and Sme ...

through a merger. In 2016, Kinross purchased the remaining 50% from Barrick Gold Corporation.

Description

The Round Mountain Gold Mine is owned and operated by Kinross Gold. Until early in 2016, it was a 50-50 joint venture between Barrick Gold and Kinross Gold, with Kinross as the operator. The mine is north of the town of Tonopah, with a workforce of approximately 750 people. In 2010, expansion of the mine was approved 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 ...

. The expansion would include increasing the depth and width of the pit, and increasing the capacity of related mining and mineral processing infrastructure. The expansion was appealed by the

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

Great Basin Resource Watch Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" *Artel Great (born ...

and the

Western Shoshone Defense Project Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US * Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that i ...

. The groups also appealed the construction of Gold Hill, a second pit near Round Mountain, that is part of the expansion. As of summer 2011, road construction and environmental mitigation began for the Round Hill expansion. Ore from the Gold Hill site is processed on site on a leach pad, while the pouring of

gold bar A gold bar, also called gold bullion or gold ingot, is a quantity of refined metallic gold of any shape that is made by a bar producer meeting standard conditions of manufacture, labeling, and record keeping. Larger gold bars that are produced ...

s takes place at the Round Mountain facility.

Geological Setting

The Round Mountain Mine is a low sulfidation epithermal deposit.

References

{{Kinross Gold Gold mines in Nevada Surface mines in the United States Geography of Nye County, Nevada Kinross Gold Buildings and structures in Nye County, Nevada Barrick Gold

History

Description

Geological Setting

See also

References