Gold is a heavy metal and one of the rarest (and coveted) elements on Earth. But how rare is it? And how much there is currently in the world?
US Geological Service (USGS) estimates that, throughout history, the Humans have already extracted about 206,000 tons of gold.
In turn, the World Golden Council (CMO) states that 238,391 tons of gold have been mined to this day. According to this entity, about 45% of gold so far extracted has been used to make jewelery, 22% is stored in collections in the form of bars and gold coins, and 17% is stored in central banks.
Humans have already minered a considerable proportion of gold that can be economically extracted from the earth’s crust. However, There are still several reserves to explore.
In the latest report of USGS mineral goods on gold goods, the agency concluded that there are about 70,550 tons of gold still present in economically viable deposits worldwide.
According to the report quoted by, the countries with the largest gold reserves to explore are the Russiaa Australia and South Africa.
According to the CMO, which removes your data from the research consultant Metals Focus, the global gold reserves add up to 60,370 tons, while the gold resources are estimated at about 145,626 tons.
Taking the numbers of the USGS and the World Council of Gold together, the estimates suggest that There are between 277,000 and 299,000 tons gold on human objects and in well -known deposits in the crust.
Most are not within our reach
Most of the earth’s gold is not in concentrated deposits or circulating to the surface. Flakes and Tiny Goldenthat are not worth extracted, there are all the crust.
The golden concentration in the earth’s crust is about 4 parts per billion, so, according to Royal Mint, all particles in the crust probably weigh about 441 million tons.
If this sounds like a lot of gold, the truth is that the amount of gold in the earth’s crust is insignificant compared to what is closed in the nucleus of the planet, which geologists say contain 99% of the world in the world – Enough to cover the planet with a layer of 0.5 meters thick.
As he explained to Live Science Chris Voisey, a mineral deposit geologist and a researcher at Monash University in Australia, when the earth formed, 99.5% gold available at the core of the planet due to its density.
Os remaining 0.5% fell later on the planet During the so -called “Great Late bombing“, A period between 4.1 billion and 3.8 billion years ago, when the earth was violently bombarded by meteorites.
“These 0.5% contain the gold that geologists and resource explorers find today in rocks and concentrated ore deposits,” said Voisey.
“It is believed that many of the precious metals of the earth that form ore deposits originated from this event, as they are not stuck in the Iron and Nickel Center,” he added.
Given that so much of the earth is in the nucleus and that the concentrations in the crust are so variable, voisey “seriously doubts” that it is ever possible to accurately measure all the gold on the planet.
