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Sustainability Times
5 days ago
- Science
- Sustainability Times
We Finally Know How Much Gold the Earth Holds—And the Hidden Reserves Buried Deep Could Change Everything
IN A NUTSHELL 🌍 Gold is primarily concentrated in Earth's core, making it largely inaccessible with current technology. is primarily concentrated in Earth's core, making it largely inaccessible with current technology. ⛏️ Current gold reserves are estimated at around 70,550 tons, primarily in regions like Russia, Australia, and South Africa. are estimated at around 70,550 tons, primarily in regions like Russia, Australia, and South Africa. 💥 Gold originates from neutron star collisions , rare cosmic events that create heavy elements through rapid neutron capture. , rare cosmic events that create heavy elements through rapid neutron capture. 🔭 The ongoing quest to access hidden gold reserves continues to drive scientific and technological innovation. Gold has fascinated humanity for centuries, not only for its beauty and economic value but also for the mysteries surrounding its presence on Earth. While we often marvel at gold's glittering allure, the real intrigue lies in the vast quantities hidden deep within our planet. Estimates of the total amount of gold vary, but one thing is clear: the majority of Earth's gold is far beyond our reach, locked away in the planet's core. This article explores the distribution, extraction, and cosmic origins of gold, shedding light on this precious metal's journey from the stars to our jewelry boxes. The Elusive Gold in Earth's Core The majority of Earth's gold is not found in the easily accessible crust but rather in the planet's core. According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey and the World Gold Council, between 227,000 and 262,000 tons of gold have been mined by humans to date. Although this number may seem substantial, it pales in comparison to the vast quantity residing deep within Earth's core. This gold is inaccessible with current technology, representing a treasure trove waiting for future advancements. Gold's abundance in the core is due to its high density, which caused it to sink to the center of the Earth during the planet's formation. This creates a fascinating paradox: while gold glitters in the hands of those who possess it, the true wealth of gold lies buried, unreachable, beneath our feet. 'Water Found Beyond Earth': Scientists Confirm It Formed Moments After the Big Bang in a Stunning Cosmic Revelation Current Gold Reserves and Production Insights While much of Earth's gold remains out of reach, there are still significant reserves available for mining. Estimates suggest that around 70,550 tons of gold are still exploitable, primarily located in regions like Russia, Australia, and South Africa. However, it is China that stands out as the largest producer of gold in 2024, capitalizing on its rich deposits and advanced mining techniques. Despite these reserves, they represent only a fraction of the potential resources that might be unlocked with future technological and economic developments. The concentration of gold in Earth's crust is about 4 parts per billion, making widespread extraction economically unfeasible. Nevertheless, the allure of gold continues to drive exploration and innovation in the mining industry. 'Earth's Core Is Acting Up': NASA Links Planet-Wide Disturbance to Mysterious Energy Surge Emerging From Deep Within the Mantle The Cosmic Origins of Gold The story of gold begins long before our planet formed. Gold's origin dates back to the intense meteorite bombardments following Earth's formation. But even before reaching Earth, gold was born from violent cosmic events. According to prevailing theories, gold forms during collisions between neutron stars. These rare and catastrophic events release immense energy, allowing the fusion of neutrons into heavy elements, including gold. This process, known as rapid neutron capture nucleosynthesis, is the only known method capable of producing such heavy elements. It explains why gold is scarce both on Earth and across the Universe. Once formed, gold disperses through space, eventually becoming part of new planets and stars, including our own. 'Super-Earth Could Host Life': Stunning New Planet Found in Habitable Zone Ignites Hopes of a Second Earth Beyond Our Solar System Gold's Journey from the Stars to Earth After its cosmic creation, gold did not simply scatter into oblivion. Instead, it was incorporated into the forming Earth. During the planet's early years, as it took shape from the dust and debris of the solar system, gold was drawn in by gravity. However, because of its density, much of it sank toward the core, leaving only a small fraction accessible in the crust. This journey from the stars to the depths of Earth's core is a testament to gold's enduring intrigue. While we may never access the vast quantities locked away beneath us, the gold that remains continues to captivate, driving both scientific inquiry and economic pursuits. As we advance technologically, who knows what new methods may emerge to tap into these hidden reserves? Gold's story is far from over. As we continue to explore and innovate, the potential to unlock new sources of gold remains. Will future technologies enable us to reach the gold hidden in Earth's core, or will we continue to look to the stars for our precious metals? The quest for gold, both on Earth and beyond, poses a tantalizing question: what discoveries await us in the uncharted depths of our planet and the cosmos? Our author used artificial intelligence to enhance this article. Did you like it? 4.5/5 (25)
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A reservoir of gold lies hidden in Earth's core. Scientists say it's leaking
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Gold and other precious metals are leaking from Earth's core into the layers above, eventually making their way up to the surface during the formation of volcanic islands like Hawaii, a new study suggests. The theory results from a three-year analysis of Hawaii's basaltic rocks, which originally formed from plumes of magma, or molten rock, rising from the ocean floor. Clues in the form of heavy metals found in the volcanic rocks could confirm a suspicion long held by geologists — that Earth's molten core is not isolated but likely bleeds into the rocky mantle, the layer between the planet's thin crust and the core. 'About 40 years ago, people first came up with the theory that maybe the core is losing some material into the mantle, but the signals we got so far were really ambiguous,' said Nils Messling, a geochemist at the University of Göttingen in Germany and lead author of the report, published May 21 in the journal Nature. 'Now, in my opinion, we have the first very strong evidence that some of the core is actually ending up in the mantle.' Scientists already knew that most of the gold on the planet — more than 99.95%, according to Messling — lies hidden in the molten core, along with other heavy elements such as platinum. As meteorites bombarded one another in Earth's early history, a reservoir of these precious metals developed when the core formed about 4.5 billion years ago. But this study suggests that at least a tiny amount of that gold has escaped to the surface, raising the fascinating prospect that, if the leaking continues, more and more of this precious metal could travel from the center of Earth to the crust in the future. 'Our findings not only show that the Earth's core is not as isolated as previously assumed. We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material — several hundreds of quadrillion metric tonnes of rock — originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii,' said study coauthor Matthias Willbold, a professor at the University of Göttingen, in a statement. To find evidence of this core-mantle interaction, Messling and his coauthors obtained some samples of Hawaiian volcanic rocks from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. 'Some were taken by a submarine, from a deep sea volcano, but (otherwise) it's basically just very ordinary-looking basaltic rock, very unassuming, that you would find anywhere on Hawaii,' he said. 'We started with half a kilogram (1.1 pounds) of rock, we crushed it into a powder, and then we melted it in the oven with some different chemicals, to end up with a sample in liquid form.' From that sample, the team extracted all the elements in the platinum group, which includes platinum itself as well as the lesser-known rhodium, palladium, iridium, osmium and ruthenium. The scientists then focused on ruthenium, a silver-gray metal about as rare in Earth's crust as gold. 'The mantle has almost no ruthenium in it,' Messling said. 'It's one of the rarest elements on Earth. But Earth is basically made of meteorites that crashed together, and meteorites (contain) ruthenium, which went into the core when the core formed. So the mantle has next to no ruthenium, and the core has all of the ruthenium. The same with gold and platinum.' Earth's core has two layers. A hot, solid metal sphere of iron and nickel is roughly 70% the size of the moon, with a radius of about 759 miles (1,221 kilometers). A liquid metal outer core is about 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) thick and extends to about 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) below the surface, or right up to the mantle. In contrast, the mantle, which lies between the planet's outer crust and the molten core, is 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) of mostly solid rock. To determine whether the extracted ruthenium was originally from the core and not the mantle, the team looked at a specific isotope, or type, of ruthenium that was likely more abundant in Earth's early building materials during the time the core formed billions of years ago. 'The vast majority of gold and other precious metals like platinum were likely delivered by massive meteorite impacts during the final stages of Earth's formation — a process known as late accretion,' said Pedro Waterton, an assistant professor of geochemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark who was not involved in the study. The presence of the ruthenium isotope in the basalt samples indicates that at least some of the rock was formed from material coming from the molten metallic core. That's because there is consensus, Messling said, that the material that coalesced during the early stages of Earth's formation does not exist in the meteorite record anymore. He added that the isotope signature in rocks from hotspot volcanoes like the ones in Hawaii is entirely different from any other known rock or meteorite. In other words, the ruthenium isotope Messling found was locked away in the core billions of years ago, so detecting the isotope in volcanic rocks today suggests it comes from the core. 'It's quite a novel and difficult method,' Messling said. 'We managed to measure ruthenium in rocks that have next to no ruthenium in them. In half a kilo (1.1 pounds) of rock, it was less than milligrams — a needle in a planet-sized haystack! That's quite exciting — for a geochemist, at least. It was a long but very exciting process.' So what's the connection with gold? It's chemically similar to ruthenium, Messling said, so if the core is leaking ruthenium, it is also leaking gold in similar quantities. This would be a 'minuscule' amount, however. And even if scientists wanted to extract gold directly from the source, the core-mantle boundary, that's much farther down than current technology could drill. In fact, it's about 236 times deeper than the deepest bore ever drilled — the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia, which reaches a depth of 7.62 miles (12.3 kilometers). Proof that the core isn't isolated is particularly thrilling because the core and the mantle shouldn't interact at all, Messling said. 'Their density is too different, like oil and water, so technically they shouldn't mix. And we still don't have a good mechanism to explain why they do. We don't really know much about the core at all,' he said. The Hawaiian rock samples suggest that the leaking process takes between 500 million and 1 billion years to complete, Messling said. 'It's something that has occurred a while ago, and we suspect that it probably has been going on forever, and it's probably still occurring now,' he explained. According to Messling, if the leaking of precious metals is an ongoing process, it could be that at least some of the gold humans have mined may have come from the core even if the quantity of core material in a single rock is negligible, and that the world's supply of gold seems to be replenishing. 'It's a very interesting idea that, although this process is tiny and has zero effect if you look at just one island, if you scale it up to 4.5 billion years it could be that it changes the composition of the Earth,' he said. Researchers who were not involved in the study expressed positive views on the findings. 'We know that the Earth was built from different generations of meteoritic material that were added progressively to the growing planet, and that precious metals from the earliest generations of meteorite material became concentrated into our planet's core while metals from meteorites added in the final stages of the Earth's growth became stranded in our planet's mantle,' said Helen Williams, a professor of geochemistry and planetary science at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The study, she added, confirms that the mantle plumes — rising jets of molten rock coming from the core-mantle boundary that create hot spots like Hawaii — do indeed contain material somehow derived from Earth's metallic core, said Williams, adding that the result was 'exciting.' Jesse Reimink, an associate professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, agrees. 'This is a very old debate, and new data over the past 10 or so years has reinvigorated the possibility that the core was chemically 'leaking' into the mantle over time,' he said. 'This study really does seem to nail the conclusion — the core does contribute some material to the mantle.' The latest research also strengthens the case made in previous work that some mantle plumes incorporate material from Earth's core, said the University of Copenhagen's Waterton. Does that also mean some of the gold in Earth's crust is originally from the core? 'Yes, but probably only a very small amount,' he said.
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Volcanic Rocks Reveal How Gold Reaches Earth's Surface
Crystallized gold in rocky matrix. getty Gold is a surprisingly common metal (it is more common than lead if we consider the bulk composition of Earth), but more than 99.999 percent of Earth's stores of gold and other precious metals lie buried under 3,000 kilometers of solid rock, locked away within Earth's mantle and metallic core and far beyond the reaches of humankind. A new study published by researchers from the University of Göttingen suggests that at least some of the supplies of gold and other precious metals that we rely on for their value and applications in modern technology may have come from Earth's core. Compared to Earth's rocky mantle, the metallic core contains a slightly higher abundance of a particular isotope known as rubidium-100. When Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago the rubidium was locked in the core together with gold and other precious metals. Standard rock analysis methods aren't sensitive enough to identify and quantify rubidium isotopes. The researchers were able to amplify the signal by first dissolving rocks in hot acid, condense the resulting steam back to a liquid, and finally measuring the rubidium signal in the concentrated samples. Analyzing lava from Hawaiʻi, the researchers found an unusually high rubidium-100 signal in the samples. Hawaiʻi's active volcanism is feed by large plumes of molten rock rising up in Earth's mantle. The origin, dynamics and composition of such mantle plumes is still debated among geologists. The rubidium signal suggests that these rocks ultimately originated from the core-mantle boundary. "Our findings not only show that Earth's core is not as isolated as previously assumed. We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material—several hundreds of quadrillion metric tons of rock—originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaiʻi," explains study coauthor Professor Matthias Willbold, researcher at Göttingen University's Department of Geochemistry and Isotope Geology. 'When the first results came in, we realized that we had literally struck gold. Our data confirmed that material from the core, including gold and other precious metals, is leaking into Earth's mantle above, ' explains study author Dr. Nils Messling, a geochemist working at the same department, the Pure gold is inert in Earth's mantle and tends to stay there. However, gold atoms can bound with three sulfur atoms forming a gold-trisulfur complex. This complex is highly mobile in the molten sections of the mantle called magma. Where material from Earth's core-mantle zone has the opportunity to rise to the surface, like along subduction zones or in a mantle plume, it can mix with sulfur-rich fluids and form gold-bearing magmas. As the magma rises to the surface, degassing and circulation of hydrothermal fluids further concentrate the gold in veins and clusters, forming a deposit that can be mined. The study,"Ru and W isotope systematics in ocean island basalts reveals core leakage," was published in the journal Nature. Additional material and interviews provided by the University of Göttingen.
Gizmodo
23-05-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
Earth's Core Is Leaking Gold Into Volcanoes, Scientists Say
Earth's core is apparently a bit leakier than scientists expected. In a new study published in Nature, researchers describe evidence that traces of precious metals from Earth's metallic core, including ruthenium and gold, are seeping up into volcanic rocks on the surface. The University of Göttingen-led team examined lava from Hawaii's volcanic islands and discovered an unusually high concentration of a rare isotope: ruthenium-100, an isotope that's more common in Earth's core than in the rocky mantle. The isotope's presence suggested that the lava had somehow picked up material from the planet's deepest layer—more than 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) beneath your feet. 'When the first results came in, we realized that we had literally struck gold,' said Nils Messling, a geochemist at the University of Göttingen, in a university release. 'Our data confirmed that material from the core, including gold and other precious metals, is leaking into the Earth's mantle above.' Earth's core formed over 4 billion years ago and contains more than 99.999% of the planet's gold supply. But as Nature reported, previous studies indicated that some volcanic rocks consisted of material from Earth's core, raising questions about how the heck that material got to the surface. Now, thanks to ultra-high precision isotopic analysis developed by the Göttingen team, researchers were able to resolve previously undetectable differences in ruthenium isotopes—an achievement that dialed the team into the relationship between Earth's center and its most explosive sites on the surface. 'Our findings not only show that the Earth's core is not as isolated as previously assumed,' said Professor Matthias Willbold, also of the University of Göttingen, 'We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material–several hundreds of quadrillion metric tonnes of rock–originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii.' The team's findings indicate that Earth's supply of precious metals near the surface may owe some of its origins to this deep-seated reserve of molten rock. Studying other hotspots—think of Iceland, Japan, and other regions crammed with active volcanoes—could clarify how much of the material brought to the surface originates from the boundary between Earth's core and its mantle.
