This article was originally published with the title “ Gold Quartz Pulverizer and Amalgamator ” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 8 No. 9 (November 1852), p. 65 doi:10.1038 ...

Geologists have known for decades that gold forms in quartz with the help of earthquakes, but now they have worked out exactly how the setting and seismic waves combine to form large nuggets.

According to the researchers, while the “dominant” gold-bearing compounds in orogenic quartz-vein fluids are Au(HS) 2 – and Au(HS) 0, a reaction that causes AuCl 4 – to gain electrons will ...

Geologists Say Quartz And Few Earthquakes Can Make A Giant Gold Nugget During seismic activity, the stress on quartz can generate piezoelectric voltages capable of drawing gold from these fluids.

When quartz produces a piezoelectric current, that current attracts gold nanoparticles found within sediment or hot, watery fluids from Earth's crust and mantle.

The landscape, in fact, is brimming with milky white quartz, and how long it takes to collect them is limited by how fast you can pick them up more than anything else.

Quartz-linked gold has sourced some famous deposits, such as the placer gold that sparked the 19th-century California and Klondike gold rushes. Both deposits had eroded from quartz veins upstream.