Certain bacteria produce tiny gold nuggets by digesting toxic metals

[LONEWOLF]

You said it... Agree to Disagree.... :rainbow:

LW....

 

[silver]

Sooo.... this bacteria is all over tassie yes....
mayhap then that a full on map of tassie could be good for a few on here..... see if you can score one... could make all the difference for a well thought out venture..... be not worth the effort without a decent map of tassie though... with the right gear it could end up being something worth riding home about ! :Y:

 

[guipago]

Google "can bacteria form gold" different scientist's around the world have the same idea, not just two guys that have spent wayyyy too much time in the bush alone, I don't believe this is how gold is formed originally, but do believe that these bacteria ingest water(toxic or not) & filter out what they need & leave a substance behind, which we call gold, of course these scientist's have screamed "Eureka" & ran with it, journalist's then get it & spruce it up a bit more(for interest sake of course) & now gold is flowing from bacteria's bums at an alarming rate, be easier to track down Tywin Lannister.

 

[DrDuck]

More on gold producing bacteria. Note that the nuggets are nanometre sized, pretty small!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180131095453.htm

 

[user 4386]

There is a lot of info on this (possibly you posted some) - studies of bacteria precipitating gold in mine dumps near Moruya, microbial forms preserved in deep lead gold mine gravels - Google Hough and CSIRO and gold

 

[Goldfreak]

More on gold producing bacteria. Note that the nuggets are nanometre sized, pretty small!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180131095453.htm

So let's cut to the chase. Is bacteria shit going to make me rich ?

 

[LC76]

Existing thread has some more info
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=24836

 

[Matt80]

The more interesting thing is if a company can mass produce the enzymes then they might be able to do an enzyme leach instead of say a cyanide leach. Not sure it would be possible but it might lead to old gold areas becoming profitable again or alternatively at least help to reduce the toxicity of many old industrial sites.

 

[user 4386]

Mostly used for pre-treatment of sulphide gold ores prior to things like cyanide. Widely used in copper circuits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomining

 

[Stormy05]

Nanometre = 1 *10 to the -12 metre or 0.000000001mm. Sounds like bacteria poop to me.

Stormy

 

[DrDuck]

http://www.geologyin.com/2017/04/scientists-discover-how-bacteria.html?m=1

 

[pagan prospector]

no wonder they are trying to lock up all areas us amateurs are taking away all the profits
good reading though
Pagan P

 

[user 4386]

http://www.geologyin.com/2017/04/scientists-discover-how-bacteria.html?m=1

There is no doubt that this process occurs, but it is possibly more important in the weathering zone of hard-rock gold deposits than later when this gold is dispersed in streams. The silver content of alluvial gold in southeastern Australia tends to be similar to the silver content of the hard-rock gold deposits from which the alluvial gold has been derived (indicating that the process is not terribly important here quantitatively). This was reflected in the different price that gold buyers paid for alluvial gold on different goldfields (gold contained from 50% silver - e.g. St Arnaud and in the far east - to 10% - eg Woods Point-Walhalla - to less than 3% silver - e.g. Bendigo-Ballarat - on different Victorian goldfields). The microbial gold commonly contains less than 0.3% silver.