In fact, certain stocks, like Yamana Gold, Desert Sun Mining and Western Silver, were owned by several of top seven portfolios.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Family members have mounted a constant vigil in a tent city -- dubbed Camp Hope -- outside the copper and gold mine in the Chilean desert.

CNN: Drilling to reach Chile miners yet to begin

But the real attraction is Friedland himself and his tales of copper and gold deposits buried under the Gobi Desert.

FORBES: The Promoter

The men have been trapped in the desert copper-and-gold mine since an August 5 cave-in and are surviving on supplies funneled to them from above ground through three bore holes, each about 4 inches in diameter.

CNN: New video shows trapped Chilean miners in good spirits

Much of the alleged abuse took place at the Gold Base, a Scientology outpost in the desert near Hemet, a town eighty miles southeast of Los Angeles.

NEWYORKER: The Apostate

During its golden age, Timbuktu was a thriving desert trading town at the heart of important trade routes for gold and salt, and a major intellectual and spiritual center, which played a key role in the spread of Islam in Africa.

CNN: Timbuktu: Mali's treasure at risk from armed uprising

This book fascinatingly weaves in the history of dogsledding (dogs were to this region what camels are to the desert), the native populations and the impact of the 1890s Gold Rush on them.

FORBES: Going To The Dogs

Candelaria's best stock for the year was Canadian-based Brazilian mining company Desert Sun Mining, up 213% after it was acquired by competitor Yamana Gold in April.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Out there in the desolate, lunar like desert of northern Chile is a mineral-rich ore called caliche -- once known as white gold.

FORBES: Patricio Contesse's white gold