Word: nevadas
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Range after rocky range, the mountains of northern Nevada soar above the arid flats. From the air their sagebrush cloaks seem as soft as crumpled velvet. Suddenly a series of gigantic holes looms below, so huge that if they were the size of anthills, the ore trucks and bulldozers scurrying over them would be the smallest of ants. "Some people see these holes and think they're hideous," muses John Livermore, a tall, lanky exploration geologist from Reno. "Others think how wonderful it is that man can do something...
...gold. In the early days of the invisible-gold rush, a ton of ore might contain a few tenths of an ounce of gold. Today that minuscule amount would be considered high grade. Says Livermore: "They're mining deposits that we would have considered waste rock back in 1961." Nevada mines are now digging up a ton of rock to get back as little as 0.025 oz. of gold...
...gold mining in Nevada were confined to the Carlin Trend, environmentalists like Glenn Miller, a biochemist at the University of Nevada- Reno, would not be so concerned. But Carlin is not the only area in Nevada where mining companies are digging up the land. Hundreds of geologists continue to roam the state, creating new networks of rutted roads. Exploration rigs continue to punch holes into the earth a thousand feet deep. In the mining boom towns along Interstate 80, schools are overflowing, crime has increased and business is good. "Ultimately," predicts Miller, "there could be one continuous hole...
...Nevada, by disposition, is a freewheeling state where almost anything goes. But lately Nevadans have begun to talk limits. This summer the state legislature passed the first mining-reclamation bill in its history. Already the more progressive companies have embarked on efforts to ameliorate the eyesores their mining operations have created. The Pinson Mine on the Getchell Trend, in which Livermore has an interest, is actively transforming waste-rock dumps into gently rolling hills planted with sagebrush, bitterbrush and crested wheat. Freeport-McMoRan, for its part, has hired a wildlife biologist to take charge of its reclamation activities...
...camera provides fine angles of Nevada, Ohio, and California settings. Fraker shoots from a low, upward angle, framing expansive vistas inside four-story jails and outside suburban homes. Scenes of Jimmie at work as an airplane engineer, combined with Howard Shore's music (he composed scores for After Hours and Big), seem like an American Airlines commercial. That's how slick they...