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USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

(www.usgs.gov)
337 points antidnan | 4 comments | 22 Oct 24 17:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.473s | source
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Animats ◴[22 Oct 24 21:33 UTC] No.41918949[source]▶
There's also a big lithium deposit in Nevada, and preparations for mining are underway there.[1] General Motors put in $650 million for guaranteed access to the output of this Thacker Mine.

It's in a caldera in a mountain that I-80 bypassed to go through Winnemuca, Nevada. Nearest town is Mill City, NV, which is listed as a ghost town, despite being next to I-80 and a main line railroad track. The mine site is about 12km from Mill City on a dirt road not tracked by Google Street View.

Google Earth shows signs of development near Mill City. Looks like a trailer park and a truck stop. The road to the mine looks freshly graded. Nothing at the mine site yet.

It's a good place for a mine. There are no neighbors for at least 10km, but within 15km, there's good road and rail access.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thacker_Pass_lithium_mine

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diggernet ◴[22 Oct 24 21:51 UTC] No.41919099[source]▶
Your description of the location of this mine doesn't match your Wikipedia link.

Searching in Google Maps, Thacker Mine comes up as 40.58448942010599, -117.8912129833345. As you say, that is near I-80 and Mill City, and there is nothing there.

But Wikipedia says it's at 41.70850912415866, -118.05475061324945 in the McDermitt Caldera, nowhere near Mill City or I-80.

I'm thinking probably don't trust Google on this one. :)

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1. Dylan16807 ◴[23 Oct 24 07:32 UTC] No.41922708[source]▶
I don't trust latitudes and longitudes that are precise down to the nanometer. :)

4-5 digits should be enough for any use outside of surveying, that's a precision of 10 meters and 1 meter respectively.

Even Wikipedia is making me suspicious by using hundredths of arc seconds, despite linking the document that came from. How do you localize a mining site down to a single foot?

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2. lobsterthief ◴[23 Oct 24 10:50 UTC] No.41923708[source]▶
I assume single foot would be what they consider to be the center of the mine? Though I don’t know how Wikipedia would have that information yet; maybe it’s the default output of their map selector or something. An actual survey of the mine would need to be done to know where its center is
3. jaystraw ◴[23 Oct 24 11:22 UTC] No.41923846[source]▶
could be artificial precision coming from degs min sec to decimal??
4. Animats ◴[23 Oct 24 20:56 UTC] No.41929207[source]▶
Right. If you look at the area in Google Earth, you can see lots of small dirt roads and little round areas which are probably test drilling sites, spread over tens of square kilometers. Like most open-pit mines, it will be big.

If you want exact coordinates, here's the future mine entrance in Google Earth.[1] The county or state widened the road, put in a turn-off, added turning lanes, and posted a "Mine Entrance" road sign. The turn-off dead ends within ten meters at the property line, as of when the picture was taken. The mine hasn't built their side yet.

[1] https://earth.google.com/web/search/Thacker+Pass/@41.6994929...