How is gold found? Detailed answer

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How is gold found? Detailed answer

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How is gold found?

Probably the first metal known to man was gold. By the way it occurs in nature, man learned about it and appreciated it long before historical times. How is gold found?

Although gold is considered valuable and rare, it is abundant in nature. The trouble is that in most cases a gold deposit is unprofitable to develop because there is not enough metal in it. For example, sea water contains a small amount of gold. But there is so little of it that no one knows how to extract gold from water. But there is so much water in the oceans that the total amount of gold in them could be ten billion tons.

Gold occurs in two forms: native, which means that it does not contain impurities from other minerals; and combined with ores of other metals. Native gold is most often found in quartz veins or in iron pyrite beds. Sometimes quartz or pyrites are exposed to water and wind. Particles of stones surrounding the grains of gold are washed away, revealing grains and nuggets of pure gold. Nuggets are gradually washed to the bottom of the valleys and mixed with sand and gravel. Such gold is called "alluvial" or "loose".

When man first discovered gold, it was loose. Gold particles range in size from tiny specks of dust to large nuggets, such as the "Welcome Stranger" nugget found in Australia, which weighs about 70 kg. Gold is often found in ores of other metals. Silver almost always contains particles of gold. Copper ores are also often found in combination with gold.

Today, gold is mined in the same ways as other metals. A deep pit, called a mine, breaks deep into the earth to the deposits of gold. It can be more than a kilometer deep! The ore is then exploded, loaded onto carts, transported to the shaft and lifted to the surface. It is crushed to fine sand, called pulp, and then the gold is separated from other substances by chemical action. The three main gold mining countries in the world are South Africa, Russia and the United States.

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

Who refuted the teachings of Ptolemy?

For a long time, almost a millennium and a half, the teachings of Ptolemy dominated the minds of people, stating that the Earth rests motionlessly in the center of the Universe. The geocentric system of Ptolemy was refuted by the great Polish scientist Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). After thirty years of hard work, long observations of the sky, complex mathematical calculations, he proved that the Earth is only one of the planets and that all planets revolve around the Sun.

He proved that it is the movement of the Earth around the Sun and its daily rotation around its axis that explains the apparent movement of the Sun, the strange entanglement in the movement of the planets and the apparent rotation of the firmament.

Copernicus brilliantly simply explained that we perceive the movement of distant celestial bodies in the same way as the movement of various objects on Earth when we ourselves are in motion. It seems to us that the banks are receding when we are sailing in a boat, it seems to us that we are floating above the water when we look down on the current from the bridge. In the same way, when the Earth in its motion overtakes another planet, it seems to us that the planet is moving backward, describing a loop in the sky. In reality, the planets move in regular orbits without making any loops.

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