Check out this satellite photo of the Mojave Desert around Barstow, CA. Extending east from Barstow, north of the mountains and south of the 40 freeway, the ground is decidedly green. In addition to gold and silver mining, copper mining has also taken place in the region.
Is the green area in the photo an area of copper ore?
Have you tried zooming in, or using the standalone google earth app? It looks like being just an artifact of that resolution to me, and that means it was only a particular series of shots, so either a weird lighting trick, cloud shadow, or water runoff. The standalone app and the zoomed-in view on your link both show grey-green-coloured earth. With more-or-less the same runoff pattern.
Copper or what?
No, I can never remember how to run the bloody thing. I can find the GoogleEarth-Mac-Plug-in, but there’s no handy icon to run it.
I did wonder if it was an artifact, but normally when that is the case you can see a difference where the rectangular images join. This is not like that. As for clouds, you can see shadows cast by the mountains; so I don’t think clouds are a factor. I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the water run-off. Are you suggesting that the higher shots were taken in the Spring, and that there is vegetation? I don’t think so. First, I’ve walked in that area in various seasons. It’s not really grassy, as the Western Mojave Desert (Antelope Valley) can be. Second, there is a green peak north of the 40 and west of Daggett-Yermo Rd. Zoom in on it, and the greenish tint persists. Also, I would expect that runoff would serve to help uncover ore; and there is copper mining in the area so we know that copper is there.
Artifact - note that the buildings in Barstow appear green, too. Also, I don’t see anything like that in the Google Earth client, but I do when I choose “view in Google Maps” from the Google Earth client.
If you zoom in a couple of times on the link, the green disappears. Why? I don’t know. 
The Barstow-Kramer area was frequently prospected for oil, and as a result its geology is well-known. The green clay that composes a large part of the lithography there is mentioned in a report by the USGS. Green clays are usually colored by iron, and sometimes by decomposed vegetable matter.
No copper.
I reinstalled Google Earth and got it to work. My eyes do detect a greenish tint to the area, but not as pronounced as in the linked map.
Interesting. I thought iron ore would be red.
And that greenish tint has clear straight-edged borders where satellite photos are stitched, which you can see if you zoom out a bit. The boundary on I-40 is just a bit west of the Pisgah Crater, for instance.
ETA:
And if you zoom out far enough, you note that the green tinted photos form an area shaped roughly like Texas. It’s a CONSPIRACY, I tell you!
Oxidized ferric iron (Fe3+) is red, when it changes to ferrous iron (Fe2+), it can be green or greenish-grey.
Speaking of artifacts, does anyone know why this was done?
I’ve noticed it before when someone mentioned the Barstow airport. Obviously filled in with black.
It looks fake. Here is Barstow-Daggett Airport. It looks like they took one of the runways and moved it somewhere else and added stuff.
Hack? Copyright trap?
I meant run-off from a (copper) mine, like a spill or something - mineralized waters are often brightly-coloured.
ETAc- you zoom in with the mouse wheel.