Today, I’m going to write about a very unique material. Gold. It’s one of humanity’s oldest treasures, but it keeps reinventing itself with the times. It’s been a status symbol, a currency, a garnish, a future material, and a lot more. It came from outer space and ended up locked away in vaults. It lasts forever. I’ve always thought about gold as this rarest of rare treasures, but I also found out recently that it’s apparently not that hard to find around here, which completely messes with my whole idea of what gold’s about. So welcome to my latest obsession. I’m gonna try to understand what makes gold so valuable and find out whether it’s actually all that rare.
Gold’s Cosmic Journey to Earth:
So if I wanna find some gold myself, I need to understand the journey that it goes on. A lot of wild stuff happened to get gold here to Earth. Cosmic explosions that chucked metals like gold out into the universe. A massive shower of metal-rich meteors that may have pounded the early Earth.
The Geology of Placer Gold:
It’s all surprisingly controversial. What we know is that there’s currently gold peppered throughout the Earth’s crust and mantle. It collects in areas called veins. Basically, super-hot water dissolves gold deep underground, brings it closer to the surface, and drops it in veins as the water cools. If a vein surfaces via erosion, the gold is weathered away into little bits and carried downstream by rivers. This is known as placer gold, and it’s what we’re after. The key to finding placer gold is its density. Gold is about 19 times denser than water, meaning only quickly flowing water can carry it. So you can expect to find gold wherever a river slows down. In either case, the current eases up, and the gold drops to the riverbed.
Which river to look in, that part’s anyone’s guess. Gold has been found all over the mountains here in Washington, but with the help of a local amateur miner,I got a tip.And just pass the bridge, there’s a turnoff to a park?Okay, good enough for me.
Why We Want Gold:
So let’s talk about why humans want gold so desperately. According to the Gold Council, which is a trade group, its biggest single use historically is jewelry. It accounts for almost half of all gold ever mined. That’s about 93,000 metric tons. Then there are the industrial or practical uses for gold. Gold’s great for dentists because it can be shaped into long-lasting fillings. It’s also used as a conductor in electronics. There’s an arthritis medicine made of gold. There are coronavirus tests that use gold. It really runs the gamut.
So what’s up with that last 35, 40%? Right now, there’s about 75,000 tons of gold that’s just being used as a thing that has value. It’s formed into bars or coins and accumulated by governments and banks, and investors. It’s not being used for anything practical, but it holds value, largely because we all just agree that it does.
An Amateur Hunt:
Now, I want to share my experience of how I went to a river in search of gold with my friend Alex through this blog.
– [Alex] Good morning.
– Ready to go get some gold?
– [Me] Yes.
– Okay.
The whole river is kinda arcing widely this way. So we’re on the inside bank, which is a good thing. I think we just start digging and see what happens. Now, ideally, we want to get as close to the bedrock layer as possible. As the gold moves through here, it sifts down through all this later material until it hits that bedrock layer.
So for us, that either means finding exposed bedrock or it means digging. We filter out the biggest stuff. Okay. So what I’m doing here just to start is getting all of this gunk suspended in a layer of water so that I can start to filter out the lightest stuff. The really light stuff is gonna be the stuff that kind of dissolves in the water. And then I can start to let the lightest rocks tip off. And the heavier stuff will sink to the bottom of the pan so that eventually all that’s left is the heaviest stuff.
That’s gonna be some black sand. It’s made of different kinds of iron. And then it’s gonna be gold. The point of this last step is to get it as spread out as possible across the bottom of the pan, so even the tiniest little flake will show up. Nope. Clean plate club. Back to it.
The High Cost of Modern Gold Mining:
This process is fun, but it does not capture the scale and stakes of the modern gold industry. Most gold comes from hard rock mining. That means digging up and processing the veins of gold while they’re still in the earth. It’s difficult and dangerous work. And it’s too easy to do poorly. The chemicals used, like cyanide and mercury, can leak and pollute groundwater. Mining can scar the land for years to come. Butte, Montana, sits next to a former mine that’s now a massive toxic lake. The area is one of the largest Superfund sites in the nation.
What’s more, the demand for gold drives millions of people around the world to engage in smaller-scale, often unregulated mining. This exposes countless workers to mercury poisoning, many of them children. Accidents and other dangers abound. Overall, it’s an industry with a reputation for crushing work and very long odds.
The Scarcity is Economic, Not Geological:
Late in the afternoon, a possible breakthrough. I’m looking for any little sparkle.
Wait, wait, what’s that? Our little sparkly guy there, you see it?
– [Alex] Oh, now I see it.
– That’s about the size we’re likely to find.
I don’t know. I can’t even tell what I’m looking at. It might not be. That is gold mining in a nutshell. After a day of digging and sifting, hundreds of pounds of earth moved, we’ve got this one tiny little fleck of maybe gold. Got it. Which gets at the other side of why gold is so valuable. It’s not rare per se, but it’s hugely difficult to mine at any real volume.
For every ton of rock processed at an average deposit, you can expect about 3/100 of an ounce of gold. That works out to about one part per million. So the gold supply is often more about economics than geology. Mining companies today have a lot of what they call gold resources. It’s gold they’ve got earmarked, but are avoiding for now because mining it will literally cost more than it’s worth. And that’s what gold scarcity really means. We know where it is and how to get it. It’s just costly in every sense of the word.
Improving Mining and Exploring Space:
There are ongoing efforts to improve gold mining. Campaigns like No Dirty Gold fight for better labor standards, environmental protections, and oversight. International mining agreements have come online, as have stronger guidelines within mining companies. And, in theory, there are more exotic ways to feed our gold habit. There are gold deposits across the seafloor, and some early efforts to mine them. Or there’s outer space.
Asteroids in our own solar system contain troves of precious metals if we can get at them. But, again, gold isn’t valuable unless you can sell it for more than it costs to get it. For now, that math says to just dig some more holes in the ground.
Gold as a Metaphor for Uncertainty and Trust:
After tearing up half a riverbank, I kept thinking about the why of the gold industry. Most gold is dug up for beauty, for status, or just for abstract value. It’s basically mined for the sake of a metaphor. And it’s a metaphor we clearly still believe in. With the onset of the pandemic, gold shot up in value, like it often does when times are uncertain. That’s us betting against the modern economy, against our governments, our leaders, and our future. It’s a vote for this thing that we all like that never changes. That’ll be around long after we’re gone.
Conclusion:
Gold may not be as rare as we imagine, but the effort, cost, danger, and history behind pulling even a tiny fleck from the earth give it a weight far beyond its shine, and in the end, we value gold not just for what it is, but for what it represents, stability, beauty, and a shared belief that somehow this ancient metal still matters.
FAQs:
1. Is gold actually rare?
It is common on the earth, but hard and costly to mine in usable amounts.
2. Why do humans still value gold so much?
Because it is stable, durable, beautiful, and trusted across cultures.
3. What makes gold useful besides jewelry?
It is used in electronics, medicine, tests, and dentistry.
4. Why is modern gold mining so difficult?
It requires heavy digging and dangerous chemicals that harm the land and people.
5. What does economic scarcity mean for gold?
Mining often costs more than the gold is worth, so supply stays limited.
6. Why does gold become more valuable in uncertain times?
People trust it as a safe store of value when the world feels unstable.