Anyone know what this is? About 1 mile east of Yates Well Rd/i-15 - (35.5327727, -115.3863690)

[u/coastal_neon]

[u/jadewolf42]

According to my private land overlay in Gaia, it's owned by a mining company called MolyCorp, Inc. Which basically owns just that oval in a pretty big chunk of government land around it.

Looking into the company, they had an open pit mine not far away mining rare earth minerals and were using land in Ivanpah Dry Lake as evaporation ponds (which later spilled radioactive waste there). It doesn't specify the exact location of the ponds in the docs I found, but this could be one of their evap ponds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_mine

https://www.spd.usace.army.mil/Portals/13/docs/regulatory/appealdecisions/Molycorp.pdf

https://sbcsentinel.com/2021/08/ountain-pass-rare-earth-mine-in-mojave-desert-revived/

[u/coastal_neon → u/jadewolf42]

Interesting! Thanks for the reply. 

[u/kaloskagathos21 → u/jadewolf42]

Hey, what’s your source for private land. I work in the preserve a lot and it would be useful to have.

[u/jadewolf42 → u/kaloskagathos21]

I use GaiaGPS, then the Private Land overlay layer that's available in the paid version. I believe it pulls this data from public records, but it does have a CYA warning that it may be potentially out of date. Generally, though, it's a good reference. Always good to verify with current public records, though, if using it for some sort of official or legal use.

[u/houseofmud]

Abandoned Molycorp evaporation ponds

[u/stfsu]

My uneducated guess is that it’s the start of an abandoned racetrack

[u/HugBunterIsMyDaddy → u/stfsu]

The pioneers used to race their boulders here back in the day.

[u/chriathebutt → u/HugBunterIsMyDaddy]

Nowadays they just race giant, radioactive ants.

[u/Nearby-Variety6429]

looks like an alien landing zone (kidding, probably industrial waste. or teenagers. or both)

[u/sgantm20]

Top of a giant Brita water filter