Southern Oregon Miners Sue to Stop Anti-Mining Legislation

According to Oregon Live, the Galice Mining District in southern Oregon has filed for an injunction in the U.S. District Court in Eugene to stop consideration of bills in the Oregon Senate that would place a moratorium on motorized mining in Oregon waterways.

There seems to be some question whether the court will act to stop legislation that has not yet been passed into law, although the answer may not be long in coming.  In any case, it is evident that the miners of southern Oregon are keeping a close watch on threats to their livelihoods and are not afraid to take action to protect their rights; something the rest of us in the mining community would do well to emulate.

For complete details on this story, please visit the link here.

Google Earth Overlays Show Washington Geology by County

The Washington State Department of Natural Resources has announced the availability of 39 .kmz files that will allow users to view the state's surface geology information as 1:100,000 scale overlays in Google Earth.  According to the announcement:

Users can take advantage of functionality native to the Google Earth program, such as terrain generation (pseudo-3D visualization), overlays, and transparency, while using place markers and other Google Earth features to which they are accustomed. The overlays provide geologic information such as age of rock units, presence of major faults, and basic lithology, giving users the ability to observe Washington geology and how it interacts with land features.

To obtain these surface geology overlays, please visit the GIS data webpage at the link here and scroll down to "Google Earth 1:100,000 Scale Surface Geology 3D Overlays" at the bottom of the page.  The PDF file titled "About the Google Earth Overlays" and located at the top of the list of file links gives detailed information on how to use this data.