News

Scientists conducted lab experiments to test how gold nuggets form on quartz crystals. Layne Kennedy via Getty Images About 75 percent of gold mined on Earth comes from deposits found in the ...
Gold has always been a hot commodity. But these days, finding a nugget isn’t too tricky: Much of the world’s gold is mined from natural veins of quartz, a glassy mineral that streaks through ...
Gold naturally forms in quartz — the second-most abundant mineral in Earth's crust after feldspar. But unlike other types of gold deposits, those found in quartz often cluster into giant nuggets ...
Scientists reveal that earthquakes generate electricity in quartz, explaining how enormous gold nuggets grow in deep rock ...
Gold nuggets often form in areas with quartz because it has a special property called piezoelectricity. This means that when quartz is stressed, it can produce electricity.
For decades, researchers have known that earthquakes, quartz, and gold were linked—nearly 75% of gold circulating today came from nuggets originally embedded in quartz deposits near faults.
Stumbling on a giant gold nugget and never working again is something we’ve all ... “Our discovery provides a plausible explanation for the formation of large gold nuggets in quartz veins. ...
Industrial gold-plating works in much the same way, only here we are gold-plating other gold. Back to nuggets Now we know how quartz and gold behave this way in the lab, we can think about geology ...
Put simply: “If you shake quartz, it makes electricity. If you make electricity, gold comes out,” of the hydrothermal liquid in Earth’s crust, Voisey tells Robin George Andrews of National ...
Geologists have known for decades that gold forms in quartz with the help of earthquakes, but now they have worked out exactly how the setting and seismic waves combine to form large nuggets.