Gold and milk .. a strange similarity in the method of formation
Variety 10:44 AM - 2021-05-25.
For decades, scientists have been puzzled by the process of creating rare deposits of high-grade gold in places like Ballarat in Australia, Sierra Pallada in Brazil, and Red Lake in Ontario, Canada.
Under natural conditions, gold veins are usually formed over tens to hundreds of thousands of years, but sometimes the “high quality” gold veins can form in years, months, or even days. How does this phenomenon happen so quickly?
By studying examples of these deposits from the “Brooks Jack” mine in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, scientists revealed through a study published in the journal “Banas”, issued by the National Academy of Sciences of America, that these gold deposits are very similar to milkshakes. .
The study, prepared by scientists from McGill University in Canada, shows that when milk becomes sour (buttermilk), particles of butterfat come together to form a gel.
Gold deposits are formed when hot water flows through the rocks, causing minute amounts of gold to dissolve and concentrate in cracks in the earth’s crust at levels invisible to the naked eye.
In rare cases, the cracks turn into veins of centimeters thick of pure gold, but how do rare deposits of high-quality gold be produced from liquids containing low concentrations of gold?
How is gold formed?
For his part, Duncan McLeish, the lead researcher in the study, tries to answer this question.
“The paradox of the huge gold deposits that we found was that there is simply not enough time for them to form, and it is natural that they do not exist, but the reality says that they do exist,” he says.
“Because the concentration of gold in hot water is so low, very large quantities of liquids need to flow through cracks in the earth’s crust to deposit mineralized concentrations of gold, and this process requires millions of years to fill a crack a centimeter wide with gold. While these cracks usually close in days, months or years.
Milk-like liquid
Anthony E. Williams-Jones of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill University, a co-author of the study, continues to clarify the image, saying: “Using a powerful electron microscope to observe particles in thin slices of rocks, we discovered that the aggregate gold deposits consist of a liquid very similar to milk.”
He explains this phenomenon: “Milk consists of small particles of butterfat suspended in water because they repel each other, like the negative ends of two magnets. When milk spoils, the surface charge disintegrates, and the particles come together to form a gel.
“It’s the same thing with gold colloids, which are made up of nano-charged gold particles that repel each other, but when the charge collapses, it“ cools ”to form a gel. This gel is trapped in the cracks of the rock to form high-quality gold veins. Gold colloids are distinctively red and can be made in the laboratory, whereas dissolved gold solutions are colorless.
“We produced the first evidence of colloid formation and flocculation in nature and the first images of small veins of colloidal gold particles and their nanoscale flux clusters. These images document the process by which cracks are filled with gold, and reveal how gold veins are formed, after expanding their scope by merging millions of these small veins.
The importance of discovery for mining
Scientists say the results of the study are of great importance to mineral exploration and the mining industry in Canada and around the world.
“Now that we finally understand how gold deposits are formed, mining companies will be able to use the results of our work to better explore deposits of precious metals, along with gold deposits,” they add.
Scientists Jones and McLeish note that genetic studies of Canada’s most fertile mineral areas – such as the ones they studied at the Brooks-Jack Mine – are needed to improve their understanding of how world-class mineral deposits form, and thus develop more effective strategies for exploring them.
PUKmedia \ Saudi 24 News
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