Gold is a lustrous yellow, malleable, chemical element that has a higher atomic number than other natural elements. It has been around practically since the beginning of time and has held its value for most stretches of that time. Gold is of interest today because of said value, and for the fact that it is popular enough to be used but rare enough that not everyone can have it. Believe it or not, gold is fairly abundant, but what contributes to its preciousness is that it does not oxidize meaning that it has the ability to maintain its weight. Since gold is a natural metal, there are many techniques for mining and extraction which ultimately result in a slew of usable forms of it. These methods and uses will be dissected in the following paper, alongside why it is prevalent in the world today, and environmental impacts.
Gold was discovered in its most basic form – in the ground and in streams. Very rapidly, it became the symbol of royalty and glamour because of its physical composition. Since gold is brilliant yellow and resistant to tarnishing, it became very popular in uses of jewelry. It was at this point where gold became a commodity, and would have a promising future in currency. Gold has a very deep history that ranges back to 4000 BC where a culture in Eastern Europe used it for decorative objects, and still it has a felt present in the current day.
Fast-forwarding a bit closer to present day, where gold is for the most part idolized for jewelry and even for currency, the question remains, how can we get more? The good news is that there is a plethora of options when it comes to mining, extracting, or even creating gold. The first method that is the most natural, is the ‘Placer Method’, which is mining for gold where it might have accumulated in specific deposits. Albeit one of the simpler methods of mining, it is “… composed of relatively loose material that makes tunneling difficult” (GeologyIN). As a result, this means the method of extraction would require a large amount of water to wash away the loose material, and a fairly older technique known as ‘dredging’. Miners use suction dredges, which are small machines that float on the water, and consist of sluice boxes (a channel that has dead zones at the bottom for gold to be filtered through). Similar to a sluice box, is a rocker box, which uses significantly less water to produce the same result of a sluice box: filtering gold through water and loose material. More commonly and responsible for most of the gold extracted today, is hard rock mining, which is the method of extracting gold from full-blown rocks. In fact, there are mining sites all around the world that grant miners this ability!
Another way that gold can be obtained aside from its natural occurrence in the environments that surround us is by synthetic creation. In 2015, a team that was led by Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences in Bangalore, India marched out to do just that. Robin Andrews of IFLScience highlights the process of that same team putting gold chloride into a furnace and heating the temperatures to 428 degrees Fahrenheit for half of an hour with cacophonous tetraoctylammonium bromide. By toying around with the chemical properties of gold, the team was able to determine what regular, naturally mined gold, can be attacked by. As a byproduct of the trials and tribulations, it was found that the synthetic creation holds up much better to those reactions.
Believe it or not, gold makes an appearance as uses in many fields other than currency and jewelry. For one, since gold is an incredible conductor, small amounts of it are used in technologies that we see today. Gold is used in connectors, solder joints, connection strips and connecting wires to prevent contact points from corroding or tarnishing. For the very same reason of reliability of conduciveness, we see gold in many computer parts that need to establish that reliable connection with other internal components, like processors, solid state drive connectors and so on. In addition to the technological field, gold also makes an appearance in the medical field. Surprisingly, gold can be implanted in tissue as radiation treatment to specific types of cancer. To refrain from being pedantic, gold is also used in the aerospace field, glassmaking, and architectural designs.
At this point, we have seen that gold has uses that are far more diverse than initially expected. Despite the fact that gold is commonly seen in the jewelry fields as well as currency equivalents, it ties into the economic standpoint as well. If we begin to consider where gold can actually be used, and the cost that is associated with these products, we can begin to dissect how the prices of items relate to the prices of gold. Higher end products are likely to incorporate gold into the materialistic aspect because of the properties that it possesses which contribute to a better functioning product. Now, we can draw a direct correlation between material and prices of hardware. More specifically speaking, and as mentioned earlier, gold is popular enough to be used for a wide variety of things, but it is rare enough that not everyone has the ability to possess it. This ideology plays into the preciousness of gold, and why it is so sought after in today’s society. That, and because it has the incredible ability to hold value over time.
As societies developed over time, gold was a form of currency that was universally accepted and because of this, gold has had an impactful form of power over other forms of currency. After all, it is the only form of currency that cannot be consumed physically. It can be melted and turned into other forms, but it never truly breaks down or deteriorates. Gold has become a hot topic in the modern day for stock market investments and general currency since it combats inflation and has pricing power. The fact that gold functions as a good storage against a declining currency is all the more reason why gold is such a big deal.
All in all, the topic of gold originally interested me because of the fuss that surrounds it in the present day. Researching it was incredibly eye opening. What was once just a natural element is so much more than that now. I understood the conceptualization of how it is obtained and where it is used, but I am now able to see gold for the truly astonishing element that it is. It is backed by a history that is very likely unmatched. People have fought for gold, sold it, created it, stored it, molded it, and much more. It is essential to note that the why behind golds superiority is far more intriguing than the what.
Gold is an incredibly interesting precious metal for the fact that it has properties that many other natural elements do not. It is so prevalent because of how it was introduced into the world. The best way to put it is the quote mentioned above from Adam Hayes that says, “Empires and kingdoms were built and destroyed over gold and mercantilism”. Gold is so prevalent in the world today because it always has been. Why? Simply put, because it is common enough to use but rare enough that not many have it. It holds its value against inflation. It cannot be consumed and therefore it will always exit. The list goes on for why gold is such an interesting topic, and the reason why it is held at such a high standard in today’s society. This paper is just touching upon the surface of where gold can be seen, how it can be used, how it is extracted, and why it is important. However, the true beauty of gold and the process of obtaining it is showcased on physicality.