Where Did Gold Actually Come From?

In keeping with the “Did You Know” theme, I thought I would delve deeper into the interesting and mysterious topic of gold.

Did you know one ounce of gold can be stretched to a length of 50 miles and the wire would be 5 microns wide. The human eye cannot see anything smaller than 40 microns in size! Or that same one ounce of gold could be hammered into a single sheet measuring nearly 100 square feet. But what might be most curious is…where did gold come from? Is gold a naturally existing element found only here on Earth?

What makes a metal a precious metal is its rarity. Rarer than silver or copper, two other metals mined since antiquity, gold's value has always been proportionately larger. Gold has fantastic properties. It does not tarnish, it’s very easy to work, can be drawn into wire, hammered into thin sheets, made into dental prosthetics, it alloys well with many other metals, can be melted and cast into highly detailed shapes, and has a wonderful color and a brilliant luster. All of these properties could be harnessed since ancient times, like today, just by heating gold nuggets at high temperatures and using simple tools like hammers or molds.

Not surprisingly, gold has been used to make jewelry for millennia. Gold has been designed into some of the world’s most exquisite jewelry—fit for kings and queens the world over. Today, nearly 80% of the world's mined or recycled gold is used in the manufacturing of jewelry. 80%! This doesn’t even account for stored gold bullion.

Did you know that the gold inside Fort Knox is the largest portion of the United State’s gold reserves? In deep storage, it currently totals over 147 million ounces. This amount is nearly as much as the next three countries combined.

It’s interesting to note a few facts about the actual value of the gold in Ft. Knox.

In 1973 a statute established the value per troy ounce of the gold reserve at $42.22. This means the “book” value of this gold is roughly $6.3 billion. The actual value, based on market value, is closer to $220 billion. Selling that much gold all at once wouldn’t necessarily have a negative impact but it would definitely impact the price. I’m not sure why they still value it at its “book” value set nearly 50 years ago.

US Bullion Depository at Ft. Knox

Surrounded by a massive green area there is little chance someone could infiltrate this place. Between the outer perimeter and the depository walls lie rings of razor wire and minefields. These grounds are monitored by high-resolution night vision video cameras and microphones. The depository is also equipped with its own emergency power and water systems.

Let’s go back even further…why is gold here? Where did it come from? There are countless cultural and religious beliefs as to why gold is here; for example, the Aztecs believed it was the sweat of the sun. Frankly speaking, we don’t entirely know how it got here.

One opinion that I’ve read, based on scientific research that I find likely, found that gold, like most heavy metals, are forged inside stars through a process called nuclear fusion.

In the beginning, following the Big Bang, only two elements were formed: hydrogen and helium. A few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the first stars were blazing away with their nuclear fires. These nuclear fires forced lighter elements together to make slightly heavier elements, and these nuclear reactions released a huge amount of energy.

Once these earlier stars ran out of light elements to burn, they kicked in on the heavier ones. As they burnt silicon to make iron, they exploded as a supernova, and for a few short moments, each star would release as much energy as all the regular stars in that galaxy put together. In that cataclysmic explosion, for the first time, atoms of gold were manufactured and then hurled out into the Universe, along with the other debris from that explosion.

On Earth, gold finally reached us some 200 million years after the formation of the planet when meteorites packed with gold and other metals bombarded its surface. During the formation of Earth, molten iron sank to its center to make the core. This took with it the vast majority of the planet’s precious metals — such as gold and platinum. There are enough precious metals in the core to cover the entire surface of Earth with a four-meter thick layer.

I’ll leave with a couple more DYKs about gold–

Did You Know – Gold has been discovered on every continent on Earth?

Did You Know – Gold is so rare that the world pours more steel in an hour than we have of gold since the beginning of recorded history?