Drag to turn the globe

Mines/United States

Silver Peak mine

Silver Peak mine, United States. Producing, brine, mining lithium since 1966.

Why Silver Peak is famous

The only commercial lithium brine operation in the United States. Albemarle has operated at Silver Peak, Nevada, since 1966 and describes it as continuous lithium brine production.1,2,3

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1938 Searles Lake; 1966 Clayton ValleyLithium brine production begins at Clayton Valley4

What kind of deposit

Lithium brine (salar)

Silver Peak today

Where lithium is mined todayMining in United States

Where next

Mines

Same kind of depositSalar de Atacama (SQM / Nova Andino Litio)Nevada's only lithium brine plant, and Chile's brine fields that reached 180,000 t a year.5ExamplesThacker PassSilver Peak pumps brine. Thacker Pass is a clay project in the McDermitt Caldera.1

Events

Led toLithium brine production begins at Clayton ValleyRead what happened near Silver Peak: Lithium brine production begins at Clayton Valley.1

Places

Located inGoldfieldSilver Peak is about 36 km from Goldfield.1Came out ofRhyoliteFollow the region on to a modern operation: Silver Peak.6

Deposit types

An example ofLithium brine (salar)Silver Peak belongs to the lithium brine family of deposits.7

Sources

  1. Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025 Albemarle Corporation (SEC)
  2. Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Lithium US Geological Survey
  3. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  4. Lithium, Professional Paper 1802-K US Geological Survey
  5. Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025 Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SEC)
  6. Wikidata item Q1889901 (Rhyolite)
  7. Critical Mineral Resources of the United States (PP 1802), Chapter K: Lithium US Geological Survey

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.

Keep exploring

Stories with these minerals

History of miningThe new rush: lithium, cobalt and rare earths1888-2025The Super Pit gold mine at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, at sunsetMining historyGold rushes, then and nowGold and lithium · WorldwideThe world runs on rockThe RocketThe metals that survive launchLessons from historyBooms and busts: what mining history shows1859-2025

All mining storiesThe world runs on rockAll mineralsMining by country

Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Salar de Atacama, Chile, NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)); South Africa: a crowd of people gathered outside The Goldfields offices in Johannesburg. 1896., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0).