Scientists have discovered the world’s largest gold hoard, accounting for 99.999% of the planet’s total precious metal.
Gold is rare, but not exceedingly so. Throughout human history, over 216,000 tons of gold have been mined, which would be enough to form a cube with sides of about 22 meters. Because gold is almost indestructible and has been recycled countless times, much of the gold used today dates back to prehistoric times. It’s also smuggled and hoarded, so precisely how much exists remains an estimate that doesn’t account for the secret treasures of powerful individuals or the many traditional jewelry collections of Indian women.
Where is the World’s Largest Gold Hoard?
All the gold mentioned above is merely a fraction compared to the largest gold deposit still waiting to be mined, which has been the subject of research by scientists at the University of Göttingen in Germany.
The good news is they know exactly where this treasure is. The bad news is we can’t access it. The small consolation is that even if we can’t get to the gold, it can still come to us, albeit extremely slowly.
Where is the Gold Now?
Cross-sectional view of the Earth. (Photo: University of Göttingen (OpenAI))
At the center of the Earth, in its molten core. The problem is that all the gold we mine, along with all other heavy metals, is essentially a trace found in the light silicate minerals that make up the Earth’s crust. Most of it lies deep in the core where it settled when the planet formed 4.5 billion years ago. This is especially true for gold because it’s a siderophile, or “iron-loving” element, preferring to combine with iron, which makes up most of the Earth’s mass. This must be an interesting combination, as there’s enough gold to cover the entire surface of the Earth to a depth of 0.46 meters.
What the scientists did was examine the isotopic ratios of ruthenium and tungsten found in oceanic basalt and picrite from Hawaii, Baffin Island, Galápagos, and Réunion Island…
By measuring the ratios, they found a strange discrepancy. The ruthenium isotope ¹⁰⁰Ru was slightly higher than it should have been. According to the research team, this means that the rocks containing this isotope came from deep within the Earth.
Researchers from Göttingen found trace amounts of the precious metal ruthenium with unusual isotopic compositions in lava from Hawaii. (Photo: USGS/M Patrick)
The measurements indicate that the ruthenium-bearing rocks came from the boundary between the Earth’s core and mantle and then reached the crust through volcanic vents. In other words, elements, including gold, aren’t trapped in the core.
Instead, they slowly migrate upwards through convective currents from the deepest parts of the molten region to the mantle and, from there, to areas we can access.
If you’re not patient enough to wait a few hundred million years for new gold deposits to form, you could take a shortcut to asteroids, which are remnants of the solar system’s formation. Some of these are rich in minerals and aren’t hidden. If they contain precious metals like gold, they could be worth up to 10,000 trillion US dollars.