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), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

and nearby mountain peak in

Clark County, Nevada Clark County is located in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,265,461. Most of the county population resides in the Las Vegas Census County Divisions, which hold 1,771,945 people as of the 2010 Census, acros ...

. Both are protected as part of the Gold Butte National Monument, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. 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 of the landscape around Gold Butte (the butte) and nearby Bonelli Peak consist of gray, Proterozoic, porphyritic

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, N ...

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 ...

-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 under ...

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 plagiocl ...

s that are also classified as

rapakivi granite Rapakivi granite is a hornblende-biotite granite containing large round crystals of orthoclase each with a rim of oligoclase (a variety of plagioclase). The name has come to be used most frequently as a textural term where it implies plagioclase r ...

. 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 Cordierite (mineralogy) or iolite (gemology) is a magnesium iron aluminium cyclosilicate. Iron is almost always present and a solid solution exists between Mg-rich cordierite and Fe-rich sekaninaite with a series formula: to . A high-temperat ...

sillimanite Sillimanite is an aluminosilicate mineral with the chemical formula Al2SiO5. Sillimanite is named after the American chemist Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864). It was first described in 1824 for an occurrence in Chester, Connecticut. Occurrence ...

and

hornblende Hornblende is a complex inosilicate series of minerals. It is not a recognized mineral in its own right, but the name is used as a general or field term, to refer to a dark amphibole. Hornblende minerals are common in igneous and metamorphic rock ...

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 a ...

es,

migmatite Migmatite is a composite rock found in medium and high-grade metamorphic environments, commonly within Precambrian cratonic blocks. It consists of two or more constituents often layered repetitively: one layer is an older metamorphic rock th ...

s, 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 we ...

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 hor ...

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 Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causi ...

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 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 ...

rocks. Together, these plutonic, metamorphic, and sedimentary strata comprise a Fault (geology), fault-bounded segment of Crust (geology), crust known as the ''Gold Butte Block''. The landscapes, of which Gold Butte is a part, within Gold Butte Fault block, block represents the deeply eroded footwall of a Miocene 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 faults.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 Gold mining, mining for gold, mica, magnesite, Copper mining, copper 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 Bureau of Land Management and Cliven Bundy, a local rancher. United States Senator 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 established Gold Butte National Monument, 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