According to estimates by the US National Oceanic Service, the gold from the depths of the oceans is so diluted that there is only one gram of this precious yellow metal for every 100 million metric tons of water.
Our oceans contain around 20 million tons of dissolved gold. However, this means there is only about one gram of gold for every 110 million tons of ocean water. Many gold deposits exist deep within the sea floor, and some deposits can often be trapped underneath rock as far down as 35,000 feet.
A 1990 study published by MIT scientists instead found that there's only about 1 gram of dissolved gold (worth around $63 today) for every 100 million tons of water in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
While it is indeed fact that gold in contained in seawater, the difficulty of extracting the gold lies in its extremely dilute existence. Although 20 million tons of gold may seem like an amazing amount, when you spread that throughout the entire ocean, you get a quantity of roughly 0.004 parts per BILLION.
The ocean, however, is deep, meaning that gold deposits are a mile or two underwater. And once you reach the ocean floor, you'll find that gold deposits are also encased in rock that must be mined through. Not easy. Currently, there is no a cost-effective way to mine or extract gold from the ocean to make a profit.
With gold having been in use since the dawn of history and new mining still occurring, it may seem strange to think of a day when there is no more gold to be extracted from the ground. Nevertheless, like any other limited natural resource, there is a finite supply of gold in the world.
About 60% of Australia's gold resources occur in Western Australia, with the remainder in all other States and the Northern Territory. Virtually all resources occur in primary deposits, many of which have undergone some degree of weathering.
A 2009 NASA mission—in which a rocket slammed into the moon and a second spacecraft studied the blast—revealed that the lunar surface contains an array of compounds, including gold, silver, and mercury, according to PBS.
The San José Called the “holy grail of shipwrecks,” the Spanish galleon San José was carrying a treasure of silver, gold, and emeralds worth billions of dollars today. The galleon sunk after a battle with British ships off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia, in 1708.
About 244,000 metric tons of gold has been discovered to date (187,000 metric tons historically produced plus current underground reserves of 57,000 metric tons).
But this gold is spread throughout the normal mineral content of seawater to the tune of “parts per trillion.” As the NOAA puts it, “Each liter of seawater contains, on average, about 13 billionths of a gram of gold.” There are also gold deposits within the seafloor, but profitably mining them is far beyond our current ...
Don't get any big ideas, though. If you were hoping make your fortune mining seawater, you had better consider this first: gold in the ocean is so dilute that its concentration is on the order of parts per trillion. Each liter of seawater contains, on average, about 13 billionths of a gram of gold.
The lost treasures of the Titanic: From a Steinway piano to a gold necklace made from the tooth of a megalodon shark - 5 priceless artefacts that went down with the liner 110 years ago. It was in 1912 when the 'unsinkable' Titanic sank after crashing into a colossal iceberg.
The most valuable single item onboard the Titanic was, however, a 1912 painting by Merry-Joseph Blondel, La Circassienne au bain. Based on the insurance claim made after the fact, the work was estimated to be $100,000, equivalent to just over $3 million dollars today.
Our oceans are worth at least $24 trillion, according to a new WWF report Reviving the Ocean Economy: The case for Action.
There is an asteroid with a metal-composition that lurks around between Mars and Jupiter while orbiting the Sun and it is made up mainly of gold. Named 'Psyche 16', it was first discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis and he named the asteroid after the Greek Goddess of Soul 'Psyche'.
In our solar system alone, there is an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter named 16 Psyche that scientists believe contains more than 700 quintillion dollars in gold and other precious metals.
Eventually, scientists calculated that the Sun contains almost 2.5 trillion tons of gold, enough to fill Earth's oceans and more. Still, that's just eight atoms of gold for every trillion atoms of hydrogen — a tiny amount when compared to the mass of the Sun.
Gold is taxable, and taxation is based on the total value in dollars rather than weight. You are liable to taxation only when you make a profit from selling gold. Typically, the more profit you make the more tax you will have to pay.
While discoveries like this are rare, Australia is estimated to have the world's largest gold reserves and many of the world's biggest nuggets were found in Australia.
Leading markets for gold exports from Australia FY 2022
China was the leading export destination for Australian gold in terms of value.
In 2022, the United States was estimated to have some 3,000 metric tons of gold reserves in mines. Thus, the U.S. was one of the leading countries based on mine reserves of gold. Australia is estimated to have the largest gold mine reserves worldwide.
A group of experts have concluded that the current increased production rate will lead to the depletion of some finite resources, including gold. Just how scarce are our gold reserves? Well, a group of scientists have set a date for the disappearance of the rare metal, and that is just 27 years away, in 2050.