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 Replies: 16 / Views: 2,752 |
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Forum Dad
 United States
24167 Posts |
 The following is an article from the Perth MintHere are 12 astonishing features we've found cited about precious gold: Gold is made in supernovas -- massive cosmic explosions that hurl out materials which gather together to form planets. Most of Earth's gold is buried too deep to be recoverable. Gold nearer the surface is the result of meteorites storms that bombarded Earth after it was formed. The abundance of gold in the Earth's crust is 0.004 parts per million. The world's oceans are estimated to hold up to 15,000 tonnes of gold. Since the dawn of humankind, less than 172,000 tonnes of gold have ever been mined. Every ounce of recovered gold would fit into a box of 20 cubic metres. These days, it is not unusual for 10 or more tonnes of rock to be mined to get 1oz of gold. Gold is extraordinarily dense -- a cubic foot weighs half a ton, making it almost twice as heavy as lead. Gold is highly malleable and ductile -- 1oz of pure gold can be beaten into a sheet measuring nine square metres or drawn into a wire 80 kilometres long. Gold nanoparticles thousands of times smaller than the diameter of a human hair are used in medicine. The average human body contains 7 milligrams of gold.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
36800 Posts |
It's hard not to like gold and humans have known about it's scarcity for thousands of years. I knew about some of these tid bits but not all, thanks for posting.
My gold crown gives me more than 7 milligrams, I'll have to be more careful where I go now.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10982 Posts |
I think the Perth Mint made a mistake with this line: "Every ounce of recovered gold would fit into a box of 20 cubic metres."I believe it should say "Into a cube that is 20 metres square" or "A cube 20 metres on each side". That's about 8,000 cubic metres or 2 Olympic size swimming pools. 20 cubic metres is smaller than the office I'm in right now! |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
Maybe it's time I sold my blood, then.
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
Gold is the nineteenth most abundant element in the Earth's crust.
Gold has the same density as tungsten.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
36800 Posts |
That's why the counterfeiters like to gold plate tungsten bars and pass them off as gold bars.
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Valued Member
Australia
145 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4008 Posts |
Quote:
Gold has the same density as tungsten. Yes, but not the same sound velocity. That makes it possible to differentiate gold from tungsten fairly easily. A bigger problem would be a bored out bar that was a mixture of gold and tungsten rods. Not sure what the sound tester would do with that. If it showed more variation than expected, that might be enough to ID the bar as highly suspect. |
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
The velocity of sound in gold verses tungsten I suspect is at least an indirect function of the modulus of elasticity of each.
Should show up in a comparison ring tone test of identical shapes.
Modulus of elasticity tungsten 400 GPa
Modulus of elasticity gold 82.7 GPa
Tungsten has the highest melting point of all metals and is the hardest of all metals. That would make it hard to make coins from.
Ed_B: I guess that your method of hiding tungsten in gold would be about the best. Would still show uo in X Ray tests.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
4944 Posts |
Interesting facts. I didn't know a lot of these. Quote:I think the Perth Mint made a mistake with this line: "Every ounce of recovered gold would fit into a box of 20 cubic metres."  Edited by Canadian-Banknotes
07/14/2012 11:36 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3670 Posts |
I stick two main facts which keeps me believing I gold....
Gold has been trusted for thousands of years and may or may not have been sought after by alien races for eons now as stated in Cowboys vs. aliens....
Another thing you all may not know about gold is I once sold a guy by the name of Chuck Norris a gold quarter oz. commemorative Olympic coin....
This has resulted in my....."Some guy who may or may not be the REAL Chuck Norris aka Walker Texas Ranger buys gold who obviously knows best and all the Mission impossible movies were pretty cool for mid 80's back that up. And he has made a killing on info commercial workout machines.....theory"
Knowing all that I think it is safe for us all to put some large chunks into gold when it bottoms out round X-mas....
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
36800 Posts |
Silverhawk74 it is hard to top that one.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2624 Posts |
The supernova doesn't make the gold, it just spews it out.... fusion is what makes the gold before the star supernova's. Thats the same with most other things... the carbon in your right hand was probably formed by a different star to the carbon in your left hand.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
619 Posts |
I think it's true that only a very small volume of gold has ever been mined. 20 cubic meters sounds a bit too small, but it's not much more than that. Think about it, gold is very dense, and takes up a small volume. Also, most gold that people buy is not 24K.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10982 Posts |
It should read over 8,000 cubic meters. 20 cubic meters is only 20,000,000 cubic centimeters. Gold weighs 19.3g/cc, so a cubic meter (1,000,000 cc's) weighs 19.3 metric tons (a metric ton is a 1,000,000 grams).
172,000 metric tons of gold have been mined. With gold weighing 19.3 metric tons/cubic meter, that means 8,911 cubic meters of gold have been mined.
I've seen this stats many times before. Often a cube 20 meters on each side is used as an example (20m x 20m x 20m) = 8,000 cubic meters. Or, about 2 Olympic size swimming pools. 20 cubic meters is the size of an office cubicle. Way, way off the mark.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2624 Posts |
The point that CPC24 makes is true... 24ct is not normal.
24ct would contain no impurities what-so-ever... so theoritically it is possible but not usually found. Coins could be a very high carat since they are solid bodies requiring no joins... virtually all jewellery however has solder joins etc on it so that would lower the purity.
Indian jewellery is commonly 21 or 22ct and very orange to look at, but it is soft and crumbly... 18ct tends to be the bet balance of hardness and colour for use in jewellery which is why the big names like Cartier always choose it.
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Replies: 16 / Views: 2,752 |
Posted 07/14/2012 10:54 am
