GOLD!

BY Tom Woolrych

All that glitters is not gold… That’s true; there are lots of shiny things. More on that later. Something that is shiny is said to have a “metallic lustre”. Gold is really quite shiny; that’s the reason we like it. Gold is rare. Its chemical symbol is Au, which has nothing to do with the way rock stars say, “AAAUUUUU!”, although in the 80s, rock stars wore lots of gold and one could be excused for thinking they were calling out for more gold. In a way they were, since they said, “AAAUUUUUUU!” to entertain us and thus get another album contract. No, the chemical symbol comes from the Latin Aurum.

Gold is malleable, meaning it can be bent easily, and is very ductile, meaning it can transmit lots of electricity. Because of these exceptional properties the space programs used lots of it in their shuttles. Because it’s so rare, gold used to be used for currency but it’s too valuable for that now; it costs over $920 an ounce. You’ll be excused for not knowing what an international troy ounce is: it’s an old-fashioned measurement, equalling a little over 31 grams. Being a metal alloy, gold is described as being made up of 24 parts or carats. 24-carat gold is therefore pure gold; however gold is almost never pure. If it were, it would be too soft (too malleable!), so it’s alloyed with zinc, nickel, copper or silver.

Almost all gold consumption goes towards entirely useless things, like a stockpile in the United States so the greenback is backed (okay, so monetary exchange is not entirely useless), or jewellery so rock stars can look good. Mind-boggling, isn’t it. Entire industries worth trillions of dollars are out there looking for something rare, malleable, ductile and lustrous just so people can look good and then have sex and then – assuming the genes of the individuals involved are top-rate – advance the human race. Or, if you believe adding another human to this world is a bad thing – and you would be forgiven for thinking this – gold actually detracts from the world.

Gold comes from the ground. It sits there under our feet in many different forms. It could be in quartz veins, or sitting in clumps deposited by the action of ancient rivers or lakes – due to its unusual heaviness, it will sink in a saturated pile of dirt, separating itself from other less lovely stuff. Or it could be microscopic, attached to little bits of sulphide minerals. Strangely, these are shiny too but almost entirely un-economic. In fact, sulphur being sulphur, it likes to attach itself to hydrogen and make sulphuric acid, which melts stuff.

Pyrite or fool’s gold is a type of sulphide mineral. It looks a little like gold except it isn’t and naturally forms perfect little cubes. Other types of shiny minerals include chalcopyrite, galena, sphalerite and the natural form of glass, obsidian. In the right light, mica is pretty shiny too. You may have seen it glittering away in a riverbed as a kid and exclaimed, “Gold! I’ve found gold!” So the next time you see something glittery, be a sceptic because more often than not, it really isn’t gold.