Goldstrike is a

gold mine Gold Mine may refer to: *Gold Mine (board game) *Gold Mine (Long Beach), an arena *"Gold Mine", a song by Joyner Lucas from the 2020 album '' ADHD'' See also * ''Gold'' (1974 film), based on the novel ''Gold Mine'' by Wilbur Smith *Gold mining ...

Eureka County Eureka County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 1,855, making it the second-least populous county in Nevada. Its county seat is Eureka, Nevada, E ...

in north-eastern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

. It is located on the

Carlin Trend 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 tectonics, tectonic crustal block called a terrane and the N ...

, a prolific gold mining district. It is owned and operated by

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 ...

. Since Barrick acquired Goldstrike in 1986, until 2018 it produced 44.4 million ounces of gold.

History

The first discovery of gold in the Goldstrike property was in 1962 by Atlas Minerals. Gold was first mined from the upper, well-oxidized portion of what became the Post deposit in 1975 by PanCana Minerals Ltd., in a small open-pit

heap leach Heap leaching is an industrial mining process used to extract precious metals, copper, uranium, and other compounds from ore using a series of chemical reactions that absorb specific minerals and re-separate them after their division from other e ...

operation. In 1978, Western State Minerals Corporation entered into a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

(JV) with PanCana. The JV delineated ore reserves for the Post deposit in 1986. Barrick acquired 100% ownership of the property in December 1986, and mining started in 1987.

Geology

The Goldstrike mine complex comprises the Betze-Post-Screamer and Meikle-Rodeo deposits. The Goldstrike mine adjoins

Newmont Mining Newmont Corporation is a gold mining company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, United States. It is the world's largest gold mining corporation. Incorporated in 1921, it owns gold mines in Nevada, Colorado, Ontario, Quebec, Mexico, the Domin ...

Carlin mine Carlin may refer to: People * Carlin (name), including a list of people with the name Places * 4121 Carlin, a main belt asteroid * Carlin, Nevada, United States * Carlin How, a village in northern England, UK * Carlin Precinct, Calhoun County, I ...

complex. Goldstrike is northwest of the Carlin mine on the

. Like most Carlin type gold deposits in Nevada the gold was

epithermal Hydrothermal circulation in its most general sense is the circulation of hot water (Ancient Greek ὕδωρ, ''water'',Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). ''A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with th ...

ly deposited in

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate g ...

silicate In chemistry, a silicate is any member of a family of polyatomic anions consisting of silicon and oxygen, usually with the general formula , where . The family includes orthosilicate (), metasilicate (), and pyrosilicate (, ). The name is al ...

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

s. The heat source was

magmatic Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also been discovered on other terrestrial planets and some natural sa ...

but the exact mechanism is still under debate. The Betze-Post deposits are up to long, thick and wide. In 2018 the average gold grade was per ton for open pit ore, and per ton for underground pit ore, for a mine average of per ton.

Mining operations

The Goldstrike complex consists of three distinct mines: the large Betze-Post

open-pit mine 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 (geology), rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a Borrow pit, b ...

, and the Meikle and Rodeo underground mines. The ore from all three mines is milled, oxidized in either a roaster or an autoclave, then leached in either a carbon-in-leach (CIL) cyanidation circuit or a calcium

thiosulfate Thiosulfate ( IUPAC-recommended spelling; sometimes thiosulphate in British English) is an oxyanion of sulfur with the chemical formula . Thiosulfate also refers to the compounds containing this anion, which are the salts of thiosulfuric acid, ...

circuit. The two treatment facilities treat ores from both the open pit and underground mines. Recovered gold is processed into doré on-site and shipped to outside refineries for processing into gold

bullion Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes from t ...

. In 2015 the Betze-Post open-pit mine produced of gold and of silver, while the Meikle-Rodeo underground operations yielded of gold and of silver. This was 24% of the total output of all gold mining operations in Nevada for 2015. In 2018 Goldstrike produced 795,663 ounces of gold, making it the world's eighth largest gold mine.

References

External links

Barrick Gold Corporation website

Barrick Goldstrike - mine tour 2000
photo gallery at

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...

Barrick Goldstrike Mine
mine geology, accessed 11/9/2019
A Guide to the Gold Strike Mine (Nevada) records, 99-63
Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Reno. {{DEFAULTSORT:Goldstrike Mine Buildings and structures in Eureka County, Nevada Gold mines in Nevada Barrick Gold 1975 establishments in Nevada