What were the causes and effects of mining booms in the west?

What were the causes and effects of the mining boom in the West? The discovery of various metals in the West led to mining booms.

Old and silver rushes 
Life in the boom-towns
Ghost towns
Mining
New states added
Government (state, local, national) involvement with railroad expansion
Land grants
The Transcontinental Railroad
Effects of the Transcontinental Railroad (Time zones etc.,)

When gold was discovered in 1848, people poured into California to prospect the "golden mountains."
At the height of the gold rush the atmosphere in the mining country was of extreme excitement
The workers would get up at sunrise, walk to work and then go back home when the sun went down
In this time period going to work was not fun at all. You had to work under harsh conditions for low wages. The wages were so bad that people had to rent out there houses to afford them.
Abandoned ruins are usually associated with ancient cities like Pompeii or Machu Picchu, but many 19th and 20th century settlements were also left to rot after natural disasters, wars or economic depressions forced their residents to flee.
abandon ghost towns 
What were ghost towns?

A ghost town is an abandoned village, town, or city, usually one which contains substantial visible remains.
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