Interesting Gold Facts
In 1799 a 12-year-old boy named Conrad Reed is believed to have found one of the very first gold nuggets in the United States. His family used it as a doorstop until a jeweler bought it for $3.50. Not a bad price, considering it weighed 17 pounds and was actually worth about $4,000 at the time.
The average gold content in the earth’s crustal rocks is about 0.005 parts per million (ppm) and in seawater at about 0.000012 ppm.
Do you know what one atom of gold weighs? One atom of gold weighs a whopping 0.000000000000000000000032705 grams!
Did you know that one (1) gram of gold contains 305,760,000,000,000,000,000 atoms of gold!
Did you know that one (1) ounce of pure gold contains 9,510,200,000,000,000,000,000 gold atoms!
250,000,000 atoms of gold placed side-by-side would make a line approximately one inch long!
At a price of $270 per troy ounce, it would take 350,000,000,000,000,000 atoms of gold to equal a value of 1 cent!
Gold can be worked into a layer measuring 1 millionth of an inch.
One ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire more than 40 miles long!
There are certain acid and alkaline compounds that will dissolve gold. The best known is aqua regia, a potent combination of hydrochloric and nitric acids.
The total amount of gold ever mined is approximately 3.8 billion ounces. More than half of that has been mined since 1850.
If all the gold mined over the last 6,000 years were gathered and melted down, it would form a cube with sides of no more than 20 yards.
Gold is completely recyclable. In fact, nearly all of the gold found during the past 6,000 years is still in use. Think about it, the gold in your wedding band or watch could have been mined by the ancient Egyptians, plundered from the Incas, or panned out by one of the original 49’ers - you never know!
Gold is a good conductor of electricity and is the most malleable and ductile of all metals.
Gold’s most important use is in computers, weaponry and aerospace. It is used where consistent, reliable performance under all conditions is essential. The electronics industry has tried to find substitute metals and alloys, but gold’s exceptional resistance to corrosion and tarnish is still unequaled. This durability accounts for the almost perfect condition of coins and artifacts fashioned from it thousands of years ago