Subscribe for notification
Categories: Latest

Geologists Say Quartz And Few Earthquakes Can Make A Giant Gold Nugget

Humanity’s fascination with gold stretches back thousands of years. Gold mining is described in ancient Greek and Roman sources, and gold rushes – especially in the 19th century – played a powerful role in shaping the modern world.

The dense, yellow metal is often found in the veins of the rocky mineral quartz. This is because the two condense together from hot fluids underground as a result of changes in temperature, pressure and chemistry.

Geologists understand this process quite well, but large gold nuggets have been a bit of a mystery. Gold is only dissolved in natural fluids at around one part per million, so how does it concentrate into lumps that weigh tens or even hundreds of kilograms?

As we report today in Nature Geoscience, the answer likely has to do with the unusual electrical properties of quartz – and what happens when an earthquake puts it under pressure.

Quartz under pressure

Quartz is what is called a piezoelectric material. There aren’t many minerals like this on Earth, and quartz is by far the most abundant.

Piezoelectric materials generate an instantaneous electric charge when put under stress – when there is a physical force compressing or stretching them. The bigger the force, the bigger the charge.

Not only did we see gold deposited onto the quartz surface, we also saw it clumping together into nanoparticles. What’s more, once the process began, gold was more likely to be deposited onto existing grains of gold than on quartz.

This actually makes a lot of sense, as quartz is an electrical insulator and gold conducts electricity. The existing gold grains adopt the electric potential from the nearby quartz and become the focus of reactions that deposit gold.

Industrial gold-plating works in much the same way, only here we are gold-plating other gold.

Back to nuggets

Now we know how quartz and gold behave this way in the lab, we can think about geology again.

Some of the most impressive gold nuggets ever found have been in quartz veins where gold-bearing fluids flow through faults in earthquake-prone rock.

During seismic activity, the stress on quartz can generate piezoelectric voltages capable of drawing gold from these fluids. Once deposited, gold becomes the focus of further piezoelectric plating as fluid infiltration continues – so the gold deposits grow bigger over time.

Over millions and millions of years, this process will be repeated again and again. Is this the reason we see such large gold nuggets in this kind of quartz vein? We think it must be at least part of the picture.

Christopher Voisey, Research Fellow in the School of Earth, Atmosphere, & Environment, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Recent Posts

Merry Christmas 2024: Top Wishes, Quotes, Messages For Your Loved Ones

Merry Christmas 2024: Christmas, celebrated each year on December 25th, is a joyful occasion honouring…

2 hours ago

Donald Trump Vows Death Penalty For ‘Rapists, Murderers, Monsters’

Donald Trump hit out Tuesday at Joe Biden for commuting the sentences of almost every…

2 hours ago

South Korea Launches Speed Dating Events To Combat Declining Marriage And Birth Rates

The demographic challenge South Korea faces has been persistent; it continues to grapple with declining…

2 hours ago

Girl, 3, Stuck In 700-Foot Borewell In Rajasthan For 20 Hours, Rescue Ops On

A three-year-old girl has been stuck in a 700-foot borewell in Rajasthan's Kotputli-Behror district for…

2 hours ago

Deloitte Fined Rs 2 Crore Over Lapses In Zee Audit. Here Are Other Cases

The National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) has fined Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP of Rs…

2 hours ago

Engaged At 2, Married At 16: Childhoods ‘Chained’ In Madhya Pradesh Village

In the heart of Madhya Pradesh, nestled amid the rugged terrains of Rajgarh district, lies…

3 hours ago