Volume 12 – Summer 2024
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Conglomerate Mesa and the mining threat
Conglomerate Mesa comprises 22,500 acres of mountainous and nearly roadless public land, brimming with rich desert life and cultural history.
Its geology tells a story hundreds of millions of years old with a series of unique and complete rock layers spanning over 200 million years and helping us understand the geologic history of California. Some of this ancient rock is also mineralized with microscopic gold particles. As a result, the area has been threatened by mining explorations and proposals since the late 1980’s.
The latest proposal, by K2 Gold, a Canadian mining company, and its local subsidiary, Mojave Precious Metals, threatens to build miles of new roads into the Mesa and 30 additional drill sites, totaling 120 bore holes, each up to a 1000 feet deep.
In addition, K2 Gold and a number of other private actors have been claiming vast tracks of land on the Mesa, in anticipation of selling the project to a larger mining company who would build a open pit, heap leach gold mine.
In this newsletter we will explore the Mesa and examine the impacts and scale of the proposed exploration and potential open pit mine.
