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Mines/United States

Comstock Lode

Comstock Lode, United States. Closed, underground, mining silver, gold, mercury.

Why Comstock Lode is famous

Discovered in 1859, the lode was exhausted by 1881. District population reached 25,000 by 1874, and Virginia City is a National Historic Landmark district.1,2,3

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1859Comstock Lode strikes4

What kind of deposit

Epithermal vein (Creede type)

Comstock Lode today

Where silver is mined todayWhere gold is mined todayMining in United States

Where next

People

Owned byJohn MackayA Dublin-born miner who ended up among the richest people in the world.5Discovered byJames FairThe Big Bonanza lay beneath Virginia City.6Financed byGeorge HearstHe paid 3,000 dollars for a sixth of a mine and began an empire.7Discovered byHenry 'Pancake' ComstockThe lode carries his name but he never shared in its millions.8Worked hereAdolph SutroA three-mile tunnel to drain the Comstock mines, finished after they had peaked.9Owned byWilliam SharonThe banker who foreclosed his way into a monopoly of the Comstock.10Worked hereWilliam StewartThe lawyer who argued one vein or many, in a fight that cost millions.11

Mines

Same kind of depositBodieComstock was exhausted by 1881. Bodie became a boomtown from 1877.1ExamplesChanarcilloSilver rush in Chile in 1832, then Nevada in 1859. Chanarcillo ran to 1890, Comstock to 1881.12Same kind of depositValenciana Mine (Guanajuato)Valenciana made a third of the world's silver in the late 18th century. Comstock was found in 1859.13

Places

Located inVirginia CityComstock Lode sits at Virginia City.1

Deposit types

An example ofEpithermal vein (Creede type)Comstock Lode belongs to the epithermal vein family of deposits.14

Sources

  1. Circular 1170, Comstock Lode US Geological Survey
  2. Virginia City National Historic Landmark US National Park Service
  3. Wikidata entity Q1122817
  4. Virginia City Historic District, Nevada US National Park Service
  5. John William Mackay Online Nevada Encyclopedia (Nevada Humanities)
  6. Big Bonanza Online Nevada Encyclopedia
  7. George Hearst Online Nevada Encyclopedia
  8. Henry Comstock Online Nevada Encyclopedia
  9. Adolph Sutro Online Nevada Encyclopedia
  10. William Sharon Online Nevada Encyclopedia
  11. William Stewart Online Nevada Encyclopedia
  12. Chanarcillo entry Geovirtual Chile
  13. NI 43-101 technical report, effective 31 December 2023 Guanajuato Silver Co (GSilver)
  14. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

Pictures on this page: George Hearst.jpg, Edouart & Cobb (Public domain); Adolph Sutro by Brady.jpg, Mathew Benjamin Brady / Levin Corbin Handy (Public domain); William Sharon - Brady-Handy.jpg, Mathew Benjamin Brady / Levin Corbin Handy (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Pictures: South Africa: a crowd of people gathered outside The Goldfields offices in Johannesburg. 1896., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Falu gruva, Lundberg, Bengt A / Europeana (CC0 1.0); Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Pangkalpinang. Mijn 3b. Een reeks koelies bezig met het transporteeren van grond, Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).