Where is gold likely to be found

Through the ages, men and women have cherished gold, and many have had a compelling desire to amass great quantities of it -- so compelling a desire, in fact, that the frantic need to seek and hoard gold has been aptly named "gold fever. The focal point of this report is a bibliography of references and an associated topic index - both of which could be useful to geochemists attempting to locate new Au deposits.

Fifty of these references originated in the Soviet Union, where most of the initial work on biogeochemical exploration for Au had been done. The 15 topics in the index Prospecting for gold is something that probably everyone dreams of trying at least once. To the person who is mainly concerned with this activity as a vacation diversion, prospecting offers a special excitement.

There is a constant hope that the next pan of sediment may be "pay dirt," and no other thrill can compare with that experienced when one In , the discovery of gold in California sparked one of the most famous gold rushes in history. Thousands trekked across mountainous terrain to seek the precious metal, with entire industries springing up around the rush. In fact, the desire to understand our mineral resource wealth that led to the creation of the U.

Geological Survey was in part fueled by gold rushes like this one. It would be no exaggeration to say that without minerals, no aspect of our daily lives would be possible. The naturally occurring material from which a mineral or minerals of economic value can be extracted. Usually minerals, especially metals, are mined first in ore form, then refined later. A sample of fact sheets on selected important commodities that are published by the Mineral Resources Program.

Rock : Conglomerate Gold Ore Contains sediments of Precambrian age; contains about 8 grams of gold per ton of rock. Mineral Origin : Witwatersrand formation, South Africa. The gold in the Witwatersrand Basin area was deposited in Archean river deltas having been washed down from surrounding gold-rich greenstone belts to the north and.

The National Minerals Information Center, the primary agency for collecting and analyzing nonfuel minerals information, releases the Mineral Commodity Summaries, a collection of reports on over 85 commodities essential to the U. A sample of native gold.

Gold has been treasured since ancient times for its beauty and permanence. Most of the gold that is fabricated today goes into the manufacture of jewelry, but it also performs critical functions in computers, communications equipment, spacecraft, jet aircraft engines, and a host of other products.

Read more about gold. Gold-bearing quartz veins from the Blue Ribbon Mine, Alaska. The Gold Rush and the Earthquake: How they combined to create the breakthrough discovery of modern seismic science.

You might be surprised where minerals pop up; they're just about everywhere. A woman with three men panning for gold during the California Gold Rush. Skip to main content. Search Search. All of the gold discovered thus far would fit in a cube that is 28 meters wide on every side.

Apply Filter. What is white gold? White gold was originally developed to imitate platinum a naturally white metal. Where can I find information about mineral commodities?

What is the meaning of the karat mark on gold jewelry? The fineness of jewelry gold is stated as the number of parts in twenty-four that are gold. Thus, 24 karat gold is pure gold; 12 K would be an alloy that is half gold and half copper or other metals. What is "Fool's Gold? The most common mineral mistaken for gold is pyrite. Chalcopyrite may also appear gold-like, and weathered mica can mimic gold as well. Compared to actual gold, these minerals will flake, powder, or crumble when poked with a metal point, whereas gold will gouge or indent like soft lead.

In addition, actual How much silver has been found in the world? All the silver discovered thus far would fit in a cube 55 meters on a side. Learn more: USGS commodity website for silver. What is sterling silver? Sterling silver is the standard of quality for articles containing This theory reinforces the idea that gold was brought to earth from the cosmos by asteroids.

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.

How is gold processed? Gold can be recovered from ore in a few ways. These include amalgamation and cyanidation. Cyanidation is most popular and involves oxidising and dissolving gold in alkaline cyanide and separating the resulting gold solution from the solids. It then has to be refined by removing all the impurities in the substance, which involves either melting and treating it with gas chlorine or using electrolysis.

Resources - gold that will potentially become economic to mine after further investigation, or at a higher price level. The volume of gold reserves can be calculated more accurately than resources, although this is still not an easy task.

The below-ground stock of gold reserves is currently estimated to be around 50, tonnes, according to the US Geological Survey. To put that in perspective, around , tonnes of gold has been mined in total, although estimates do vary. But this is a moving target.

New technologies may make it possible to extract some known reserves that aren't currently economical to access. The most recent innovations include big data, AI, and smart data mining, which can potentially optimise processes and bring down costs. Robotics are already being used at some sites, and are expected to increasingly become standard technologies in mine exploration.

Biggest sources. The largest single source of gold in history has been the Witwatersrand Basin of South Africa. China is currently the world's biggest miner of gold, while Canada, Russia, and Peru are also major producers. In terms of companies, Barrick Gold's majority-owned Nevada Gold Mines is the single largest gold-mining complex in the world, producing about 3. Though new gold mines are still being found, discoveries of large deposits are becoming increasingly rare, experts say.

As a result, most gold production currently comes from older mines that have been in use for decades. Large-scale mining is extremely capital-intensive, employing lots of machinery and expertise to mine vast areas on and below the surface.

There are relatively few unexplored regions left for gold-mining, although possibly the most promising are in some of the more unstable parts of the world, such as in West Africa. Although gold prices hit a record high in August, this doesn't automatically translate into a rise in gold mining activity.