Earthquakes turn water into gold

[jeff of pa]

Earthquakes have the Midas touch, a new study claims.
Water in faults vaporizes during an earthquake, depositing gold, according to a model published in the March 17 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. The model provides a quantitative mechanism for the link between gold and quartz seen in many of the world's gold deposits, said Dion Weatherley, a geophysicist at the University of Queensland in Australia and lead author of the study.
When an earthquake strikes, it moves along a rupture in the ground — a fracture called a fault. Big faults can have many small fractures along their length, connected by jogs that appear as rectangular voids. Water often lubricates faults, filling in fractures and jogs.

Earthquakes turn water into gold - Science

 

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[arnofarrell]

Sweet study.

 

[Prospecting P.]

thats a beautiful pic. so earthquakes are good now..? lol

 

[StoneyRun]

Awesome, that is a beautiful earth sculpture!

Cheri

 

[AlwaysBusyJ]

Yeah I read that article yesterday, interesting, but still seems like most of the gold produced this way would be locked up in the faults. Places that would be extremely difficult to get to. I'm curious though about liquifaction that occurs during big quakes, I've seen videos where the ground turns into a almost liquid state from the intense shaking, this would move all the gold down in the soil and concentrate it I would imagine. Plus I've seen water forced up through cracks and spilling out onto the surface, if the study is correct then shouldn't that water contain alot of micro gold? Since when the fissure is made the pressure drops concentrating the gold, and then when it shakes, water gets forced back up through the crack possibly bringing the newly concentrated gold with it. Just a thought, I'm not too sure I'd be running around with my gold pan during a major earthquake, but I'd definatly considering taking samples later if I saw signs that water was forced up to the surface. Hopefully we don't get hit by the big one anytime soon up here in the pacific northwest.