Where Did Gold Come From: Black Holes, Aztecs, And The Gods

Authored by Joao Peixe via OilPrice.com,

Forever synonymous with wealth, gold has been the most coveted mineral on earth since its first recorded use back in 3000 BC.

From Ancient Egypt to the U.S. Treasury its history is one of war, death, love and prosperity.

But how did this most precious of precious metals actually get here? How much gold is there in the world? And, most importantly, how can you get your hands on it? 

Gold: Origin

It’s the stuff movies are made of. Literally. From Goldfinger (1964) to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966), from The Italian Job (2003) to Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995). Hollywood keeps making movies that depict the irresistible nature of gold and reinforce its mythical status.

But little is known about how gold gained its unrivalled reputation or, more interestingly, how it first came to be.

According to the Greg Moore, the CEO of EuroSun Mining, the origins of gold is still the subject of heated debate in the industry. The only thing that seems certain is that such a heavy metal would require the most extreme conditions in the universe to create – both the highest densities and the highest temperatures. 

Here are four of the most popular theories when it comes to the mysterious origins of gold:

#1 Sun Sweat

The Aztecs famously believed that gold was the sweat of the sun and that it was literally falling from the sun to the earth, where it could be gathered. This origins story goes a long way to explaining why the Aztecs believed gold held a very strong spiritual value.

While the notion that gold is sun sweat may sound crazy, some scientists believe that the Aztecs weren’t a million miles from the truth…

#2 Metal of the Gods

The Romans thought that gold was the metal of the gods, and like the Aztecs, thought that gold had descended from the sun. The Romans thought Pluto, the god of wealth, was the giver of gold and other metals.

They mined most of their gold in the Eastern part of their empire, Romania, which even today is home to a huge amount of this precious metal. In fact, the largest in-development gold mine in Europe can currently be found at EuroSun Mining’s  Rovina Valley project.

Modern day miners don’t have much time to worry about the origins of this remarkable metal, but for EuroSun and its fellow junior gold miners, finds of this size will certainly seem like a god send in the current bull market.

#3 The Rock Star

Now we don’t want to get bogged down in the detailed astronomical explanations behind this theory. Suffice it to say that some scientists believe gold is created when a “rock star” collapses and becomes a very heavy neutron star (aka, black hole). The extreme density and heat created by this explosive process, called a supernova, is what some scientists think creates these heavy elements such as gold.

#4 Neutron Stars

An alternate cosmic theory is that when two neutron stars touch each other, it creates billion-degree heat and extremely high density, which is powerful enough to eject mass, creating a Jupiter-sized batch of gold in a single go.

Regardless of which cosmic phenomena are responsible for forming the precious metal, most scientists do agree on how that universe-created gold came to earth. It is widely understood that gold arrived on this planet in meteor showers a couple hundred million years after the earth was formed.

As for the involvement of god… well that is a question we are going to leave open to you.

Easy Come, Easy Go

Origins may be elusive, but the meaning is certainly not. We may not know exactly how it came into being, but the mysticism has only added to gold’s use, since the beginning of time, as a currency. 

Other currencies have come and gone, but gold has remained as the support for nearly all currencies around the globe. Its long-term value, unlike other forms of currency, has kept it above all other minerals. While dollar bills and other forms of paper currency eventually took over how the world conducts business, gold has backed many currencies, and at one point in history, the United States even backed every dollar that was in circulation with gold.

So where does this leave us? None the wiser, but all the richer.

In the immediate term, it’s about getting gold out of the ground, not finding more. We’ve tapped out Earth’s supplies. Origins, as far as miners like EuroSun in Romania are concerned, is quite a simple concept: It’s in the ground in the Rovina Valley in droves, and now –we need to get it out in an economically viable way. It is now technology that rules supreme in the gold space, with the most efficient extraction process bringing in the huge returns.

In the EuroSun case, their new technology essentially makes gold afraid of water and pushes it to the surface, devoid of all the waste. Whether or not the Roman gods put it there, a large portion of Romania’s gold will soon be extracted.

In a beautiful cyclical manner, it seems that the gold story is likely to end where it began – with the race to mine space already underway. After new technologies have squeezed the last of our gold reserves out of the earth, we must look to the origins of this most precious of metals and search for more in the final frontier.