At the moment, labs make their own nano gold by dissolving larger pieces of gold and growing the nano crystals. But they have suffered from some of the same difficulties as the geologists looking for natural nano gold: being sure they know just what sort of nano gold particle they are dealing with. Whether natural nano gold will be of any use to labs is unclear, said Jadzinsky, because it depends on how hard it would be to purify the salty ground waters and isolate just the sort of nano gold that is desired. Geologists aren't worried about laboratory applications, however. Instead they are looking at how the nano gold could lead to large, extractable deposits of the precious metal. "It has big implications for exploration," said Hough. "It's really a fundamental of how gold moves around." And now that they know how to look for the nano gold, there is a way to look for signs of gold deposits anywhere there is salty groundwater, said Hough. "Previously we didn't have the tools to look at (nano) gold directly," said Hough. Now they know: Thars gold in them thar ground waters. Related Links: Larry O'Hanlon's blog: Earth Impacts How Stuff Works: How Could Gold Save My Life? Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) |
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