How Rare is Gold?
 

The best estimates available suggest that the total volume of gold mined over history is approximately 155,500 tonnes, of which around 64% has been mined since 1950. More than 90% of the world's gold has been produced since 1848. For a history of gold mining, click here.

The dominant producing country for much of the 20th century was South Africa, which in the early 1970s was producing 1,000 tonnes per annum, or over 70% of the world total at that time. In 2005, South Africa mined only 296 tonnes, still enough to be the world leader. Second place Australia produced 263 tonnes followed closely by the U.S. at 262 tonnes.

The density of gold is 19.3 tonnes per cubic meter. The 155,500 tonnes of gold mined over the history of mankind would be 8057 cubic metres.

The dimensions of such a cube would be only 20 metres a side!

The world gold production is approximately 2500 tonnes per year. To this cube we would be adding approximately 10.7 cm per side.

Considering that the standard tennis court is just over 23 meters (78�) long this clearly illustrates just how rare gold is.

Re: How Rare is Gold?
 

Gold is not rare. It is one of the most widely distributed metals in the world. What is "rare" is commercially recoverable gold: concentrated deposits that make it economically feasible to recover.

Scientists who study earth-satellite imagry estimate that only 10-12% of the gold has been recovered, but when a person figures (1) that most of it is scattered and not concentrated enough to commercially mine, and (2) that much of it is deep within the earth which means it becomes more expensive to mine each year = also not economically feasible to mine until the price of gold increases to a point that makes mining a specific concentration feasible.

Re: How Rare is Gold?
 

How would define rare?

The imagery for me of all of the gold that humanity has ever mined nearly fitting in a cube 20 cubic metre a side seems to suggest it is pretty rare. If, as you suggest, we have only mined 10-12% of ALL the gold than we would still have at most 10 such cubes.

That seems pretty rare to me.

Re: How Rare is Gold?
 

...How do you define rare?...

Probably the same way you do. My point is that it is economically feasible "recoverable" gold that is rare.

There are millions upon millions of specific locations that gold can be found. There is a lot of gold out there; it's easy to find in a geological area in which gold were formed.

Most gold was formed in microscopic particles that are invisible to the human eye, and by VERY FAR most veins (loads) in which gold is currently located or in which it was formed are "low-grade'". This means that there is not enough gold per ton of ore to make it economically feasible to mine (separate out/recover).

Loads that contain visable gold have always been rare. Visable gold requires that there were umteen (thousand/million?) liquified particles that had to have been in together in a precise spot when the gold and the host (rock - most often silica/quartz) cooled and solidified to form visable color. This is why nuggets are rare (more diamonds are found than gold nuggets).

Additionally, a comparatively large percentage of the gold was formed as "non-free milling"; the remainder of it formed as "free milling". Free-milling gold is colors that are not chemically combined with other minerals and thus is less costly to recover: just pulverize and screen the ore, and separate the gold out from is host matrix. Non-free milling gold can be compared with disolved sugar in a glass of water. It's there but you can't see it and you can't just pick it out.

Most gold that has been mined throughout history and is being mined today is "placer" ("a" as in platter) gold. This is gold particles that have been freed from their decomposing host matrix by nature over thousands of millions of years. A lot of "old" colors (gold that is already in a drainage system) get redistributed every year by floods, and "new" gold is every year, washed out of the banks and relocated by current when the current gets strong enough to move the streambed materials with gold in company, downstream.

Gold? There is a lot of it out there and it's easy to find. Come to a lot of creeks in a gold-bearing geological area with me and I'll show you how easy it is to find. But be ready to work because you have to move silts, sands, gravels, rocks, and often clay to separate gold out.

Again, what is rare by definition are colors (each particle of gold regardless of size is a "color") that is economically feasible to recover, and this is gold that is located in concentrated (rich) deposits.

Re: How Rare is Gold?
 

Correction: Economically recoverable gold with today's technology is rare.

Humans are smart monkeys, technology is always improving.

70% of the earth's surface is under the sea. If that can ever be economically mined for gold and silver, the new influx should flood the markets, similar to how gold & silver flooded the old world after 1492.

Re: How Rare is Gold?
 

Correction:

Correct what?

Re: How Rare is Gold?
 

Correcting everyone else.

I'm right and they are wrong.

(My ego is so big that it will serve as emergency shelter if TSHTF.)

Re: How Rare is Gold?
 

Ahhhhhhhhhh..."right" & "wrong". They don't exist outside the laws of science. All things that have to do with people and living are neither "right" or "wrong". Rather, they're "different".

And "different" had better be ok, because that's how everything is. In this case it's maybe perspective?

Re: How Rare is Gold?
 

And more specifically (agreeing with above statement) it's tough to find ore that contains 33% or more with 80% ore very uncommon.

Now, I can show you tonnes of ORE abandoned in Colorado that contain about 1% gold in each ore sample........the mountainsides are littered with this stuff.

So, in retrospect a 99.9% Gold Coin is pretty damn rare. :beer:

Re: How Rare is Gold?
 

Gold used to be mined/found at 2% more each year - like a normal population curve. However, recently the African mines are losing production year-to-year at about 10%. Silver has lost production for the last 10 years.

I don't know for sure - but, perhaps the world will be fighting for loss of supply with demand RISING on:

OIL

NATURAL GAS

GOLD

SILVER

FOOD GRAINS

PROTEIN like fish to cows

Bet ya!