Here are the facts about gold and tips on where to find gold and how to pan gold. Mixed excerpts from our Lars Guldström USB Gold Handbook USB.
Gold is an element, ie it is made of gold only and is therefore not a mixture of other components. Gold is a precious metal, so it does not oxidize in the air like iron, (rust) or copper (verdigris).
In addition, gold is very resistant to common acids and it is almost impossible to influence it. There's an acid that attacks gold, and that's royal water, a mixture of 1 part nitric acid and 3 parts hydrochloric acid. Gold may also be dissolved in sodium or potassium cyanide. These are chemicals that you should not play with. AU, so (pure) gold is just the right metal.
The hardness is 2 1/2 on Mohs (10-degree) scale, on which lead, which is even softer, is set to 1
The malleability of gold is the largest of all metals. One gram of gold can be pulled to a 3000 meter long wire with a diameter of only 0.00012 mm! Gold can be rolled out to a thin sheet called gold leaf with a thickness of only 0.0001 mm! Gold leaf is so thin that even light can penetrate.
Gold is one of the heaviest metals. The density, weight or specific gravity is 19.32. In other words, if you were to fill a 2-liter milk pack with gold, it would weigh almost 40 kg! Gold is almost twice as heavy as lead.
The Latin name of gold is Aurum - which means dawn - and from there gold has its chemical name (AU).
The crystal form of gold is cubic. However cubic gold crystals are uncommon in nature. Rinsed Koerner and lumps are almost always gently rounded and slightly flattened. But there are other, more unusual forms. For example, so-called "adult gold" or dendritic gold.
The electrical properties of gold are quite unique. The electrical potential is high, +1.5 volts. The ability of the gold to conduct electricity is very good, 42.6 x 106 Siemens / m.
The melting point of the gold is 1.063C.
The gold content is measured in carat or fine gold, pure gold = 24 carat or 1,000 fine.
Gold can be alloyed (fused) with other metals such as silver or copper. If the alloy contains 75% gold, the gold content will be 18 karats or 750 fine. If the alloy contains 50% gold, the gold content will be 12 karats or 500 fine. And so on. For regular purposes, 24-carat gold is impractical. Therefore, for example, gold is fused with copper to make the alloy harder and more durable. Gold, which is alloyed with at least 20% silver, is called an electron.
The gold atom number is 79, its atomic weight is 197, and the oxidation number is + I and + III.
Internationally you weigh gold in troy ounce. A troy ounce is 31.1 grams. The value of gold is determined daily on the major metal exchanges in London, Tokyo and New York and is calculated in US dollars / troy ounces. In January 2018, the price - translated into Swedish money - was about 350,000: - / kilo + VAT (350 Kr + VAT per gram). Gold bars are stored in large bank vaults and it's called gold reserves.
Above all, unearthed gold is used for jewelry. Gold is also used in dentistry, and the rest goes to the electronics industry. In nature, gold occurs partly as grains and lumps in the bottom sediments (in deposits) and partially solid in veins.
Gold weighs 6-7 times as much as sand and gravel in the air. But underwater, gold weighs 10-11 times as much as sand and gravel. This can be explained by Archimede's famous principle. It makes it a little easier to wash the gold with water.
The average gold content on earth is 3.5 milligrams per tonne. A natural (and usually somewhat flat) gold grain, which is about 0.6 mm in diameter, weighs about 3.5 milligrams.
Our planet contains about 21,000,000,000,000 tons of gold. That's not very little. In the crust, which is up to 36 km deep, there are at least 84,000,000,000 tons of gold.
One cubic kilometer of seawater contains 3.5 kilos of gold.
Currently around 100,000 tonnes of gold are in circulation. That's "everything" that has been collected so far. This corresponds to a gold cube with 17 meters side length. (17 x 17 x 17 m.)
A nugget - Holtermann Nugget - found in Australia weighed more than 285 kilos, of which 214 kilos were pure gold.
No other metal can completely replace gold!
