Growing Nuggets

[Dedevil]

Heard a story on another thread/forum about gold coming in from meteorites and thought i would add the following;
Just watch Steven Hawking show which explained that gold actually comes from exploding stars which then reforms with other matter to create a new solar system. The video is available to buy online if you wish, I watched it on t.v. and thought it was excellent.
But rather than J.P.’s theory of the gold on earth coming from meteorites, I was shown at a prospectors club meeting a theory that the gold has already arrived here while the earth was being formed. But! Why do we find gold in unusual spots? The nuggets are far away from primary reefs. And some have been so big that they could not be carried there. The answer according to the geologists who was the speaker at the meeting was that Gold Au is thought of as insolvable by acid. Well according to the geologists that isn’t so. There is an acid that dissolves gold, and apparently during the formation of the earth millions of years ago, this acid naturally existed. So the gold plus acid became a solution which travelled through the surface of the earth and then, I think it was millions of years latter reformed into solid gold. I think it may have been a way for the earth to find equilibrium. This explains way nuggets can be found anywhere including inside sandstone.
Sorry I can’t remember the acid or the chemical equation, that meeting was 20 years ago.
rgds

[WM6]

Originally Posted by Dedevil

Sorry I can’t remember the acid or the chemical equation, that meeting was 20 years ago.
rgds

HNO3+3 HCl

But this cannot explain nuggets and gold ore vein formation. Meteorite theory is much more acceptable.

[Dedevil]

The gold ore bodies as i understand where formed, well some of them, by the gold that was already on earth and was melted by volcanic disturbances and then forced up and into the cracks in the rock or fissures as they are known by. Nuggets are another thing again. As the reef ore bodies have been exposed over millions of years they have been slowly erroded away and parts of them have cracked off and been washed down hill in streams. This is why you can find how far a nugget has travelled by its roundness. But this still doesnt explain the isolated nuggets found no where near reefs. And so the acid theory can explain some of these and i'm sure there are other nuggets of gold and other materials found from meteorites. Apparently the meteorites are worth chasing but how would you detect them? If you don't know their composition.

[Dedevil]

As i've travelled across Australia a lot with my mining work i oftren look out of an aeroplane and see meteorite impacks. But wonder what metals would i be looking for? They are apparently worth a lot of money for scientific research.

ANY IDEAS?

[ikumi5]

Originally Posted by Dedevil

Sorry I can’t remember the acid or the chemical equation, that meeting was 20 years ago.
rgds

a mixture of concentrated nitric and hydrochloric acid aka aqua regia (usually in a volume ratio of 1:3)

[Dedevil]

Found this site with a good explanation about nugget formation.
http://nevada-outback-gems.com/place...se_gold_P1.htm