Having panned for gold in Gympie I was convinced I'd come home with a lot of pyrites and now 30 years later I feel I need to revisit that tiny jar of yellow dust.
(Got a killer dose of sunburn just above the bum crack bending over in the stream with my pan, a reminder sunscreen has to go EVERYWHERE.)
Fascinating read! So if arsenic helps gold concentrate in deposits, does this mean arsenic-rich environments are better places to prospect? Or is it more about how existing deposits form rather than finding new ones?
quick search on "arsenic in water" yields endless
official governmental and other notices all over the world, so there does not apear to be a direct
asosiation between (recoverable) gold and arsenic
and that it is so prevelant that some humans have adapted and pass arsenic.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/centuries-poison-l...
Right? Turns out fool’s gold has a bit of wisdom after all. It won’t make you rich, but in the right conditions, it can help concentrate the real stuff!
Genuine question for an outsider: would this imply that gold can be created? My memories from the last chemistry class I had, I clearly remember my teacher demonstrating philosopher stone ( aka changing materials in gold ) was feasible.
This article is about arsenic minerals acting like a sponge that holds and concentrates gold from the surrounding environment that it comes in contact with. It isn't creating new atoms of gold.
Gold can be created through an unrelated process of nuclear transmutation, but it's impractically expensive [0].
Gold is a chemical element, not an alloy or any kind of mixture of other things - so no, chemical reactions won't help you get gold.
Nuclear reactions WILL produce gold - in many ways actually (none profitable afaik):
- throw a neutron or 2 at neighboring elements, ensure they have the right energy for the cross section, hopefully with neutron capture and beta decay you get some gold (maybe the stable Au197 version, maybe a violently radioactive isotope though, I wouldn't wear a ring made of that. And it will eventually stop being gold when it decays). Oh an immense amount of radioactive byproducts. And the starting elements are often more expensive than gold itself.
- Fuse 2 lighter elements with just the right weights, you may get gold. But creating elements above iron is energy-negative so your fusion reaction will immediately die unless you can sustain it. All the gold we found on the planet was created during supernovas IIRC.
- Fission something heavier and hope that gold is one of the pieces you're left with.
- Start with an unstable isotope of Thallium, Bismuth, etc and hope for a few alpha decays to line up and get you gold.
There are actually quite a few paths.... and ALL the gold you'll ever see, whether artificial or "natural", was created with one or another (but most really is from supernovas). Remember, we started with only the building blocks in the big bang, mostly Hydrogen.
Nope, this doesn’t create gold, just helps existing gold accumulate in certain conditions. Actual gold creation requires nuclear reactions, which are technically possible but not practical.
A fun little fact: We now have the ability that alchemists sought for so long (transmuting elements through nuclear reactions), and we are using it to destroy gold, not create it.
The processes involved are so expensive to do that in terms of cost it doesn't really matter what you are using as the source material, and the way gold is very resistant to corrosion is useful for using as a target in experiments.
ggm|1 year ago
(Got a killer dose of sunburn just above the bum crack bending over in the stream with my pan, a reminder sunscreen has to go EVERYWHERE.)
stavros|1 year ago
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somebodynew|1 year ago
Gold can be created through an unrelated process of nuclear transmutation, but it's impractically expensive [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals#G...
gruturo|1 year ago
Nuclear reactions WILL produce gold - in many ways actually (none profitable afaik):
- throw a neutron or 2 at neighboring elements, ensure they have the right energy for the cross section, hopefully with neutron capture and beta decay you get some gold (maybe the stable Au197 version, maybe a violently radioactive isotope though, I wouldn't wear a ring made of that. And it will eventually stop being gold when it decays). Oh an immense amount of radioactive byproducts. And the starting elements are often more expensive than gold itself.
- Fuse 2 lighter elements with just the right weights, you may get gold. But creating elements above iron is energy-negative so your fusion reaction will immediately die unless you can sustain it. All the gold we found on the planet was created during supernovas IIRC.
- Fission something heavier and hope that gold is one of the pieces you're left with.
- Start with an unstable isotope of Thallium, Bismuth, etc and hope for a few alpha decays to line up and get you gold.
There are actually quite a few paths.... and ALL the gold you'll ever see, whether artificial or "natural", was created with one or another (but most really is from supernovas). Remember, we started with only the building blocks in the big bang, mostly Hydrogen.
memorydial|1 year ago
Tuna-Fish|1 year ago
The processes involved are so expensive to do that in terms of cost it doesn't really matter what you are using as the source material, and the way gold is very resistant to corrosion is useful for using as a target in experiments.