Dissolved gold The largest gold nuggets are often found in places where fluids flow through faults in rock during earthquakes. This creates veins of quartz that can contain gold.

Interestingly enough, earthquakes have the ability to cause quartz to form large gold nuggets, a fact that has been well-known among scientists for decades. What has managed to elude them for just ...

Hole BG24-34 intersected a 24 meter stockwork of gold bearing quartz veins including 1.12 g/t gold over 0.48 meters and 0.92 g/t gold over 0.92 meters.

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.

Anomalous gold is present farther downhole as well, where a sphalerite bearing quartz vein and associated fault returned 0.69 g/t Au and 2.76 g/t Ag over 1.74m at 286.9-288.64m downhole.

Unlocking the mystery of gold nuggets formation in quartz veins through piezocatalysis during seismic activity.

To study how earthquakes help form the gold nuggets, scientists conducted lab experiments with quartz slabs that were submerged in gold-rich liquid.

This creates veins of quartz that can contain gold. It takes hundreds or thousands of earthquakes to create a deposit, so the quartz crystals in veins may experience thousands of episodes of stress.