Get the latest tech news
The Curious Case of Eriogonum Tiehmii
If you were standing on Rhyolite Ridge in Nevada on September 12, 2020, it would have felt hot. Ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit hot. On this far western edge of the Great Basin, the largest North American watershed with no outlet, with the sun blasting and your feet shuffling across shattered plates of a chalk-white rock, you’d likely come across a delicate, yellow-flowered
On this far western edge of the Great Basin, the largest North American watershed with no outlet, with the sun blasting and your feet shuffling across shattered plates of a chalk-white rock, you’d likely come across a delicate, yellow-flowered perennial forb, buzzing with a frenzy of pollinators: Tiehm’s buckwheat. Rhyolite Ridge happens to be one of the largest searlesite deposits in the world, guaranteeing a huge payout for the eager developers and offering political gain for domestic energy initiatives, putting the future of Eriogonum tiehmii on unstable ground. There, a 5,700-acre lithium mine just broke ground in March, despite years of ap- peals to the courts citing violations of Indigenous land rights, groundwater pollution, and destruction of habitat for the greater sage-grouse, an already fiercely debated species in population decline.
Or read this on Hacker News