almost half the gold ever mined comes from the Witwatersrand Basin , a layer of Au - flecked rock that distribute out under South Africa . The mines there arefamously deepand prolific . Why is there so much gold condense in this one small part of the Earth ’s crust ?
terrific fact About the globe ’s Deepest Gold Mine
A Swiss earth scientisthas a fascinating theory , and it involves flatness of ancient microbes .
The story , grant to astudy by Christoph A. Heinrichpublished this calendar week in Nature Geoscience , begins 3 billion years ago . Earth had yet to undergo its Great Oxidation Event , when microbes began pump oxygen into the atmosphere , creating the zephyr that we have it away and breathe today . Back then , the atmosphere was still full of gas like sulfur , which would have oppose with water to become H sulfide , pouring acid rain over the untried Earth .
So here ’s the mystery . Geologists have long known that the Witwatersrand Basin ’s Au originated with the rich amber vein of the Kaapvaal Craton mountain range , in northeastern South Africa . But how did that amber get hundreds of miles in the south ? According to Heinrich , hydrogen sulphide rain down down on the mountains , and the S reacted with atomic number 79 to create molecules that could be fade out in water system . Those molecules then traveled through river that dumped out , finally , into the catchment basin .
How do we get from that gold solution to atomic number 79 ore ? Heinrich think ancient bug living in fatheaded , slimy mat were responsible for pulling the metal out of the urine in a process called precipitation . The microbes sucked up the amber , and when they died , they fell to the bottom of the shallow basin . After their body decomposed , only the Au was allow for .
Heinrich found this potential scenario on the fact that some microbes today can bring down amber from its ionic form in water to its solid elemental form . Microbes , as tiny as they may be individually , are powerful enough to remold the landscape painting in conglomeration . You might even have them to thank for the amber in your circuitboard . [ Nature Geoscience , New Scientist ]
Top icon : Au ore from the Witwatersrand Basin . Rob Lavinsky / Creative Commons
GeologymicrobesSciencesouth africa
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