The earth’s core has a “escape.” And it’s gold

Our planet hides, thousands of kilometers under our feet, a mainly composed nucleus ironwith an important nickel concentration, and also with other intermingled elements. And among these latest elements, there is gold.

Gold leak. Gold that, according to a recent study, It is leaked towards upper layers, in the direction of the surface and through the land mantle. A gold, in addition, that would have “escaped” of the earth’s core along with other precious metals.

A tiny portion. Gold has been considered, since time immemorial, a precious metal and its “rarity” has been related to the value we have given to this element throughout the history of mankind. “Rareness”, quoted, since it is a contextual rarity.

Gold is rare on the surface of our planet and in the most accessible areas of the cortex through mining. But this element is not universe in the universe, and it is not scarce on our planet Earth. So much that the “superficial” gold represents less than 0.001% of the total of this gold.

Before and after. Someone might wonder why the gold of our planet has been distributed so capricious. It is because this cast has little or nothing capricious, and the reason is in the geological history of our own planet.

When the land was still in the process of formation, about 4.5 billion years ago, gold and other metals ended up trapped in the planet’s core, due to gravity. Until now we believed that these metals would have been separated from the surface by the terrestrial mantle. The origin of surface gold, following this logic, could be for example in spacethanks to the infinity of meteorites that have reached the surface of our planet throughout its geological history.

After the track of Ruthenium. This, we pointed out, not only with gold, also with other similar metals such as The Ruthenium (RU). The recent study was based precisely on this metal and a significant fact: that the Ruthenium typical of the Earth’s core presents a significant abundance of a concrete isotope, Ruthenium-10 (100ru), which distinguishes it from superficial root.

The team responsible for the new study analyzed Ruthenium traces found in the volcanic rocks of the Hawaii archipelago to determine the presence of the 100ru isotope. Something that would have been impossible a few years ago, The team stands outit has now been possible thanks to new tools developed for analysis.

Analysis that allowed linking the ruthenium found in these rocks with the earth’s core, which implies that this metal from the border region between the nucleus and the mantle would have risen until it sneaks into the volcanic magma. The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Nature.

Aboard the convective magma. Investigating what happens under the surface of the Earth has been over the years a task on the verge of the impossible. The propagation of the seismic waves revealed at the time very valuable information about the mantle and the nucleus, but increasingly precise measurement techniques have gone Opening new doors Over the years.

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Image | Göttingen University (Openai)