Gold mining in the United States open-pit heap leach mines in the state of Nevada. The US is a net exporter of gold. Gold was discovered in Alabama about 1830, shortly following the Georgia Gold Rush. The principal districts were the Arbacoochee district in Cleburne County, mostly from placer deposits, and the Hog Mountain district in Tallapoosa County, which produced from veins in schist. Russian explorers discovered placer gold in the Kenai River in 1848, but no gold was produced. Gold mining started in 1870 from placers southeast of Juneau. Alaska produced a total of of gold from 1880 through the end of 2007. In 2015
Juneau gold belt fissure fillings of the area are comparable with the California "mother lode" deposits. Most of the gold mines in the Juneau belt occur in the band of black slate which lies between the schists to the northeast and the greenstones to the southwest. "The complex of veins which follow this black slate is described as the main lode system of the Juneau belt." "Parallelism of vein systems and ore deposits with the outcrops of bed-rock formations...is one of the noteworthy characteristics of the district." This results in a "linear distribution of the mines." Most of the gold deposits are found