New findings about the Earth! Scientists have found out the Earth’s core is full of gold and this is going towards our surface. This part of Earth is such a mysterious part that needs more research. Maybe next time you see a volcano you will be near a gold reservoir, yes… gold in volcanoes’ lava!
Earth never stops surprising us and this is an important event for the better understanding of the Earth’s core functioning. Let’s see what is happening with all that gold.
The Earth’s inside
Maybe you have studied this at school, but in case you don’t remember let’s see the Earth’s inside to understand what has happened.
The first thing we need to know is that the Earth is divided into layers and the main ones are: the crust, the mantle and the core. Interesting names, but… what do they do?
The crust is where we live and we can find mountains, oceans and so on. Then, the mantle is under the crust and this layer is formed by melted rocks that move around. The last one is the core, this is the center of the planet and the deeper the layer is, the hottest it will be. So, this is the hottest part of Earth and it is full of heavy metals like… gold!
Scientists’ discovery
German scientists were studying volcanic rocks and they noticed a special ruthenium, which is a rare and precious metal similar to platinum. The ruthenium had an unusual isotope (this is when it is found the same types of atoms, but different number of neutrons) which were found on the surface because it belongs to our planet’s core.
This was something that shocked scientists because that meant they came from the depth of the Earth. How could it be possible?
Heavy metals travelling around the inside of the Earth
Heavy metals going upwards reaching our surface is because of the capacity the core has to contain precious metals. These can be freed and arrive to the mantle where it is still hot – not as much as in the core – so the mass created with the rocks can travel and this is called convection.
At the end, these rocks are so close to the surface that they are found in volcanoes’ lava. So, metals like platinum or gold can be found in our volcanoes.
Does this process really matter?
Of course! This process is very helpful to fully understand Earth and even other planets. Before this happened, scientists thought Earth’s core was separated from the rest of the layers and now they know this is not true because the core is capable of filtering these rocks to the nearest layer.
This could also lead to a better understanding of how metals move inside other planets which are similar to our planet.
Okay, so let’s dig to get the gold then!
That would be crazy! The hole they would need to dig would be the deepest in history and it has never been done something like that. Everything needs time and if that gold is slowly coming to us that way, we should not intervene.So, it is better to let it run its likely course.
Nature and its processes are so striking, they keep showing us how powerful the Earth could become and how little we know about it. These discoveries prove the importance of scientists since they are the ones who will use natural processes to get more information about outer space.
You should keep in mind this discovery was not done on purpose, the German scientists were just studying volcanoes and they found a metal that lead to the Earth’s core where gold was found.