Carlin, Nevada

Carlin sits at the western edge of Elko County on the I-80. To the northest of town is the Carlin Trend, a geological formation that is one of the most productive gold mining spots in the U.S. The Carlin Trend (or Carlin Unconformity) represents the "meeting" place of two tectonic plates. There was a collision here about 350 million years ago between these 2 plates and the resulting heat caused hot springs to flow upward from deep in the Earth. These hot springs leached many different minerals in the ground out of the rock and concentrated them in the flow tubes that led to the surface. This particular gold-producing zone is about 5 miles wide and 40 miles long and has produced more gold than any other mining district in the U.S. The gold ore is not a high-quality ore so the method preferred by the mine operators around here is open pit mining and gold extraction using the cyanide heap leach method. 2 of the largest open pit gold mines on Earth are here.

Carlin was originally a favored campsite along the California Trail used by the 49ers during that gold rush (1849). Carlin was established as a railroad town in 1868 and until the 1950's, that was the principal business in town. Gold mining on the Carlin Trend didn't start until the 1960's, and didn't really take off until the 1980's.