Where Does Gold Come From?
Gold is heavenly, in every sense of the word. Most people don’t know this but, while we mine for gold here on earth, all of the gold that’s deposited in our planet was formed during the explosions of stars and collisions of asteroids, and eventually found its way to earth over time. On earth, gold is one of the most valuable precious metals and rarest natural minerals. It is also one of the 118 elements so far discovered and classified by humans. Pure gold is a bright warm yellow, malleable and soft substance. It’s so soft that, in its purest form, it can’t really be used for everyday wear. To harden it, it is alloyed with a mixture of metals like silver, copper, platinum, palladium and zinc. Its primary use is in jewellery, but it’s also used in finance, electronics, computers, dentistry, medicine, aerospace, glassmaking, and as awards and status symbols. It’s clearly present in the formation and upkeep of many of our innovations, but how is gold made?
How is gold formed?
There are two main theories about how gold is originally formed, both involving stars. One involves the explosion of supernova stars and the resulting nuclear fusion creating atoms of gold, and the other, the collision of neutron stars that results in a gamma-ray burst, one of the most powerful explosions possible. In August 2017, the presence of heavier elements, including gold, was detected using gravitational wave detectors during the first observation of the collision of two neutron stars. What these two events have in common is the presence of nuclear energy, which is required to combine lighter atoms into heavier ones.Where is gold found?
In its natural form, it is found deep in the layers of the earth where it is transported by water, molten lava and volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. Geologists have found gold in rocks as old as 4.5 billion years ago.
The Witwatersrand, one of the most gold-rich mining areas in the world, is located in a 300km radius crater in southern Africa, thought to have been caused by a meteor strike over 2 billion years ago. This theory reinforces the idea that gold was brought to earth from the cosmos by asteroids.
There’s also a higher concentration of the element in the earth’s crust than scientists initially expected, lending further support to the idea that a large proportion of the mineable gold on earth was delivered by asteroids that impacted on the surface.
Gold is also found in our oceans. All the water in the seas and oceans of earth is believed to hold a cumulative total of between 10 and 20 million tons of gold, mostly diluted in water at a tiny concentration level.
It can also be made synthetically, but the process requires nuclear reactions that make it prohibitively expensive and impractical to produce and sell for its current uses.