All About GOLD: Mining, History and Science (1)
All throughout recorded history, one metal that has continuously played a prominent role
in the formation and advancement of human civilization is gold. the yellow metal has
been seen as a representation of the sun, of the gods, and of true value, a form of real money
without counterparty risks and stores within it the freedom to transact and save wealth outside of
the system. Jewelry made from gold has been used to denote status in society, as an expression of
wealth that is more than a gaudy ornament but an actual store of value recognized by all nations,
cultures, and political factions. Governments hoard it in central bank vaults to hedge against
economic instability while religions of all kinds adorn their temples and churches with
it to represent the essence of the divine. As if all of this wasn't impressive enough,
gold also contains an industrial component, being an essential ingredient for many electronic
devices and is a key piece of the space race puzzle which is only fitting, because its origins
are out of this world. On today's episode, we seek to dig deep and uncover the mystery,
intrigue, and political machinations that have surrounded a commodity the Incas referred to
as the tears of the sun. It's gold, on Commodity Culture.
Gold, like most elements on earth, has its origin written in the stars and came to be through the
merger of neutron stars, the same as uranium and silver, among many others. When these stars merge,
they explode catastrophically and this causes gold to form via something called the rapid
neutron capture process or r-process for short. According to the Berkeley Lab:
The r-process occurs in high entropy environments
in which extremely high neutron fluxes result in extremely rapid successive neutron captures,
driving the populated isotopic distribution toward very large neutron numbers. Okay it's
complicated but space is a complicated place and gold's incredible origins only add to its allure.
From an elemental perspective, gold is classified as a transition metal, with a density of 19 grams
per cubic centimeter, an atomic mass of 196, and a melting point of 1064 degrees celsius.
In terms of its practical uses back here on planet earth, gold is undoubtedly first and
foremost a monetary metal and has been used as a form of money by humanity for thousands of years.
We'll get into that in a minute but let's first take a look at its industrial uses,
and there's more of them than you might think. Much like its cousin silver,
gold is used extensively in the manufacturing of electronics. In fact, the smartphone in your
pocket is made partially from gold but before you go dismantling it in an attempt to strike it rich,
it contains 0.034 grams or around 2 dollars worth. Gold is a very efficient conductor of electricity,
with a knack for carrying tiny currents while also being immune to corrosion and, much like silver,
is both extremely malleable and practically indestructible. For this reason, it's used in
soldered joints, connectors, switch and relay contacts, and connection strips.
This means it is used in practically all large electronics, including computers and televisions.
Because gold is also non-allergenic, it sees a lot of use in dentistry. Fillings, crowns, bridges,
orthodontic appliances, and your favorite rapper's sparkling grill are all blinged out with the
precious metal, for both practical and aesthetic purposes. Finally, gold came from the stars and
we found ways to send it right back in the form of spacecraft, which use gold in a variety of ways.
Because making repairs and performing routine maintenance can be very difficult, if not outright
impossible once in orbit, the dependability of gold and its resistance to corrosion make it a key
ingredient to mankind's journey into the unknown reaches of outer space. Now that's all well and
good but i can already hear you shouting "Show me the money!" and that is perfectly natural,
as gold has provided humanity with a reliable form of currency for generations and we're
hardwired to recognize it as such. Gold holds all of the characteristics of an ideal money.
It is scarce, decentralized and outside of any third party control, and it is fungible,
meaning it can be divided into different sized units to facilitate transactions. In addition,
it is portable even more so than silver, as it packs a ton of value into a tiny package, with a
single ounce of gold currently being worth around 1,800 U.S. dollars. To the ancient Egyptians,
gold represented the sun, and the flesh and bones of the gods. To the pharaohs and priests
who controlled Egypt, gold represented power and marked them as living representatives of the gods.
Although it began mostly for jewelry for the priest class and to craft idols for worship,
Egypt eventually established it as a form of currency when they created the shekel,
weighing in around 11 grams. This early money was not entirely gold but was actually electrum,
which is comprised of two thirds gold and one-third silver. The first known pure gold coins
were minted in Lydia, a part of modern day Turkey, by the decree of King Croesus around 550 BC.
Around 50 BC, the Romans minted their first gold coin, dubbed the aureus and around a
millennium later in 1284 Great Britain minted its first gold coin, the florin,
while Italy followed suit with the gold ducat, which went on a five century run at being the
most popular gold currency in the world. So gold has a long and storied history as a form of money,
but how is it extracted from the earth? Let's take a look.
There have been a variety of gold mining methods employed throughout the ages,
from the panning methods that most people consider when they think of all the great
historical gold rushes, to burrowing tunnels deep beneath the earth and using explosives.
The most ancient known gold artifacts were found in Bulgaria in an acropolis estimated to have
been built sometime between 4700 and 4200 BC and the oldest gold mine discovered was in Georgia,
with the archaeologists who dug it up placing its origin around the 3rd or 4th millennium BC,
so humans have been mining for gold for a very long time. Some of the first extensive historical
records of gold mining date back to the Roman empire where they used the ancient method of
hushing, which employed powerful floods of water to reveal gold veins, along with placer mining,
which involved the mining of stream beds to extract loose sediment deposits of the
precious metal. Panning is, believe it or not, a legitimate method of collecting gold
and some enthusiasts still use it today, though more as a hobby than as a means of making money
because it is incredibly time consuming and yields very little ore. Gold is heavier than
most minerals and so by using a pan to collect rocks, you can then shake the pan which allows any
potential gold particles to rest on the bottom for easy identification and extraction, by pouring out
the water and the lighter minerals that have been collected. The problem these days is, the amount
of gold you are likely to get from a full day's work would barely pay for your meals that day.
In modern mining, before any particular method is chosen, an area first needs to be prospected
to see if there is a reasonable enough quantity of gold to economically justify extraction. This
is done by geologists who take surveys and lab samples of minerals from the area in consideration
to accurately estimate if the discovery of load deposits, or larger chunks of ore, is a likely
possibility. There used to be a lot of load deposits closer to the earth's surface but over
the course of humanity's history, most of those easier to extract deposits have been exhausted.
However, near-surface deposits do still exist and open pit mining is used to extract them.
This involves drilling holes around the identified ore deposits and using explosives
to blast the rocks into smaller pieces, which are then collected and hauled off by trucks to
be processed. These days, load deposits are mostly found deep within the earth.
In this scenario, access shafts are dug at a diagonal angle into the rock and all along these
shafts, vertical shafts called stopes are also dug to a depth of around 30 to 50 feet into the rock.
Explosives are then placed along the length of the stopes and detonated, sending the chunks of
rock to the bottom, which are hauled up and put into trucks, as with the open pit methodology.
In both of these cases, the trucks transport the ore to a mill facility for processing
where the rocks are crushed into a fine dust and mixed with water to create slurry. Oxygen
and cyanide are added to the slurry, which react together and separate the gold from the rock.
This process is known as leaching. The next stage is smelting, which involves placing the
extracted gold into a furnace at around 1200 degrees celsius with a chemical mixture called
flux, which assists in removing even more non-gold materials from the ore.
The molten gold is then poured into solid bars which are then transported to refineries, where
they are able to remove any remaining impurities and the final product is those absolutely gorgeous
gold bars and coins that investors, collectors, and speculators seem to have an obsession with
and I mean, I get it. Just look at these beauties. Mankind has been coveting and adoring gold since
the day it was discovered. Interestingly, the majority of the world's gold today actually
rests on the ocean floor but at present time, we don't have a cost-effective or environmentally
sound method of extracting it. Humanity's desire to enrich itself in the form of gold
is a constant that we've seen throughout history and sometimes, that desire can take a darker path.
When it comes to the history of gold, one can't help but think of the rugged prospectors who left
everything behind with shovel and pickaxe in hand to venture to California in the hopes
of staking a claim that would make their fortunes, and change their lives forever.
I'm talking of course about the great California gold rush of the 1840s,
when men were men and where saloons were thick with the smell of whiskey and tobacco, as bar
brawls broke out over women, who were outnumbered practically ten to one by the testosterone-driven
gold seekers. If this all sounds overly nostalgic trust me, these were anything but fun-loving times
and the darkness at the heart of man was revealed for all to see. Xenophobia, racism,
violence, mob law, and evil deeds formed an undercurrent that threatened the very souls of
those whose visions of riches came up against the harsh reality of the California desert.
Those who staked their claim early benefited greatly by discovering an abundance of gold near
the earth's surface in the California region. These early adopters often got in, focused on
working hard and obtaining the maximum yield of gold, with not a lot of competition, and then
got out with their fortunes. Records exist of men easily removing massive nuggets of gold that were
practically lying out in the open, with minimal effort required an incredible reward to be reaped.
In those early days it wasn't uncommon for someone to pull up enough gold to buy 100 horses in only a
few days time. 1848 was a year of massive success for so many who arrived early to the party,
and tales of their incredible fortunes drove others to relocate to San Francisco in the hopes
of striking it rich. But like a modern millennial investor following the herd into chasing the
latest hot cryptocurrency all the way to the bottom, those tales of early success would prove
elusive to prospectors who weren't willing or able to take the initiative before anyone really knew
