The first person or civilization to discover gold is the Ancient Egyptians. They mined gold in Nubia around 2450 BC. An Egyptian alchemist named Zosimos was the first to find pure gold (24 centuries before Columbus reached the Americas).
Most researchers have put the year of gold discovery as 2,600 B.C. As mentioned earlier, gold was in abundance at its time of discovery, and many people were in a rush to possess it. About 1,000 years later, in 1,223 B.C., people began to use gold for various purposes.
Edward Hammond Hargraves is credited with finding the first payable goldfields at Ophir, near Bathurst, New South Wales, on 12 February 1851. News of gold spread quickly around the world and in 1852 alone, 370,000 immigrants arrived in Australia.
By all accounts, the first civilization to mine and use gold were the ancient Egyptians. Artifacts recovered over the centuries lead scientists and historians alike to agree that the Egyptians first began mining gold in 5000 BCE, before developing written language.
All of the gold that's deposited in our planet was formed during the explosions of stars and collisions of asteroids, and eventually found its way to earth over time. Today, gold is one of the most valuable precious metals and rarest natural minerals.
Discovery of gold in Australia
There had been multiple gold finds in New South Wales (Bathurst and Monaro), Tasmania and what would become Victoria prior to the 'official' discovery of the precious metal by Edward Hargraves near Orange in 1851.
In Australia this concentration of gold took place in the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago in the eastern states, and thousands of millions of years ago in Western Australia. As well as gold, the fluids can carry other dissolved minerals, such as quartz. This is why gold is often found with quartz.
There is a long history of gold discovery and gold exploration in Australia, however there are contrasting reports as to where gold was first discovered in the country. According to some records, gold was first discovered in 1851 near Orange in New South Wales.
And today's techniques can extract more of the gold from the quartz that hosts it. Today, Victoria's gold mines produce around 650,000 ounces of gold each year, or about 20 tonnes. For comparison, at the height of the first gold rush, some three million ounces or around 90 tonnes were produced in 1856.
Adding or removing protons from a nucleus are types of nuclear reactions. As such, no series of chemical reactions can ever create gold.
Some of the veins produce up to one quarter of an ounce of gold per ton of rock. What makes Dahlonega gold so different from other gold found around the world is the purity. Dahlonega has the purest gold in the world, which is 98.7 percent pure.
In addition, lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, niobium, molybdenum, lanthanum, europium, tungsten, and gold have been found in trace amounts.
Egypt is a land rich in gold, and ancient miners employing traditional methods were thorough in their exploitation of economically feasible sources. In addition to the resources of the Eastern Desert, Egypt had access to the riches of Nubia, which is reflected in its ancient name, nbw (the Egyptian word for gold).
As the earth's crust is estimated to mass around 2.6 * 1022 kg, it means that there is around 400 billion kg of gold throughout the entire crust. Much of it will never really be accessible, of course, but there really is quite a bit out there.
The reasons behind gold's enduring value include: Gold is perceived as a symbol of wealth, power, and majesty. Gold has had an exalted position throughout the ages as a highly coveted, even worshipped material. Gold has been used over millennia as jewelry and a means of exchange.
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). Most of that gold has come from just three countries: China, Australia, and South Africa.
How much gold does that leave for other applications? New and innovative uses for gold are being discovered every day, uses that could jeopardize your ability to buy gold in the future. >> If current mining operations continue at the same pace, below-ground stocks could be depleted in less than 20 years.
Now fully owned by Newmont Goldcorp, the mine reopened in 2009 after a major expansion project that increased the throughput to become Australia's largest gold mine.
Australia is estimated to have the world's largest gold reserves, with 9,500 tonnes or 17 per cent of the total world estimated gold reserves of 57,000 tonnes.
Australia and Russia hold the largest reserves of gold
Australia and Russia hold a large share of the world's gold mine reserves, accounting for 8,400 metric tons and 6,800 metric tons, respectively. Worldwide, the production of gold reached an estimated 3,100 metric tons in 2022.
Considered by most authorities to be the biggest gold nugget ever found, the Welcome Stranger was found at Moliagul, Victoria, Australia, in 1869 by John Deason and Richard Oates. It weighed gross, over 2,520 troy ounces (78 kg; 173 lb) and returned over 2,284 troy ounces (71.0 kg; 156.6 lb) net.
Aboriginal people mined the land for ochre and stone long before the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour. As the European gold rushes spread across the country, some Aboriginal people became prospectors too. In August 1788, the first gold was reportedly found in Australia by convict, James Daley.
Your finds. Minerals are the property of the Crown. If you discover gold or other minerals or gemstones on land not covered by a mining tenement, and the ground is Crown land (under the Mining Act 1978), then you are free to keep what you have found (as long as you hold a Miner's Right).
On February 12, 1851, a prospector discovered flecks of gold in a waterhole near Bathurst, New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Soon, even more gold was discovered in what would become the neighboring state of Victoria. This began the Australian Gold Rush, which had a profound impact on the country's national identity.