Scientists say "No Bling, Without Bang"

Scientists say no bling without bang
Meteorites smashed into Earth four billion years ago
Gold, other precious metals came from above

WERE it not for meteorites striking Earth some four billion years ago, humans would never have laid eyes on the gold that has raised and ruined civilisations, according to a study just published. Two hundred million years earlier, during the violent throes of planetary formation, Earth was a mass of molten minerals set afire by collisions with planet-sized heavenly bodies. These Olympian crashes probably threw up the Moon and also caused billions of tonnes of liquefied gold and platinum - enough to cover the planet with a crust four metres thick - to sink to centre, creating its core. And there the precious metals lie, forever beyond the reach of grasping human hands. This much was known. The enduring mystery was why there remained anything more than trace amounts of gold in Earth's outermost skin, called the crust, and the layer underneath, the mantle. Indeed, precious metals are tens, perhaps thousands of times more abundant in Earth's silicate mantle than they should be if none were added after the great meltdown during the planet's early phase. Hence the theory that gold and other shiny rare metals were imported from outer space after our orbiting, rotating home had cooled enough to harden, at least partially, into rock. But it was only a theory. To put it to the test, a trio of researchers led by Matthias Willbold of the University of Bristol in Britain analysed ancient rocks from Greenland that took shape shortly after the formation of the core but before the suspected bombardment of meteorites. Their results were published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. Using cutting-edge technology, they measured the isotopic composition of tungsten, a very rare element which, like gold and other heavy precious metals, gravitated to Earth's centre during the formation of the core. When atoms have the same chemical make-up but a varying number of neutrons, which changes an atom's mass, they are said to have different isotopes. These minute variations can indicate both the origin and age of a mineral. Comparing the Greenland samples to rocks from elsewhere on the planet, the researchers detected a tiny but unmistakable 15-parts-per-million difference in the abundance of a particular isotope, called 182W. The gap is perfectly consistent with the theory that the "excess" gold which humans so covet is a fortuitous by-product of an ancient meteorite shower. "Our work shows that most of the precious metals on which or economies and many key industrial processes are based have been added to our planet by lucky coincidence when Earth was hit by about 20 billion billion tonnes of asteroidal material," Willbold said in a statement.

ne ws.com.au

Who doesn't love gold

Who doesn't love gold

Me

there is no way they could know that, i love science but i hate it to... people spout out their theories as if they are fact and truth.


ps: NOBAMA, uncle sam goddam is one of my favorite songs.

reply to post by iSHRED


Oh snap someone who knows what good music sounds like.

how catchy

a champagne supernova 'no money, no honey'

Do you think this could be one of the many reasons for the LHC? Experiments on how to manifest rare materials by crashing atoms together?

I've always thought that the LHC is more than finding the origins of life to be honest.

Some ideas of what I think it could be for:

1. Light speed travel
2. Time travel
3. Rare materials & minerals
4. New sources of power

reply to post by Violence

Compare mining locations with meteor/asteroid impact sites. Look for diamond, copper, nickle, iron, coal.... The fact that rocks from space have been and still are bringing precious metals and other materials to Earth have been known for a very long time.

here is one example;

In 1903, mining engineer and businessman Daniel M. Barringer suggested that the crater [meteor crater in Arizona] had been produced by the impact of a large iron-metallic meteorite. Barringer's company, the Standard Iron Company, received a patent signed by Theodore Roosevelt for 640 acres (2.6 km2) around the center of the crater in 1903.

Source-Wiki
If I understand it correctly many mines found around the world are old impact sites.

These people like gold

This could also be why the governments are taking all the gold, probably to give to them to prevent a war with them?

Originally posted by Devino
here is one example;

In 1903, mining engineer and businessman Daniel M. Barringer suggested that the crater [meteor crater in Arizona] had been produced by the impact of a large iron-metallic meteorite. Barringer's company, the Standard Iron Company, received a patent signed by Theodore Roosevelt for 640 acres (2.6 km2) around the center of the crater in 1903.

Source-Wiki
If I understand it correctly many mines found around the world are old impact sites.

That's not a good example is it? That mine was a dismal failure, 27 years and millions spent and it yielded nothing.

en.wikipedia.org...

Impact physics was poorly understood at the time and Barringer was unaware that most of the meteorite vaporized on impact. He spent 27 years trying to locate a large deposit of meteoric iron, and drilled to a depth of 419 m (1,376 ft), but no significant deposit was ever found.

Part of the problem is that the size of the impactor was only a tiny fraction of a percent of what Barringer expected it to be, but the bigger problem was that it mostly vaporized on impact.

Back to the OP, does anyone think that someday we might figure out how to get that billions of tons of gold out of the Earth's core? We can't do it today but there's certainly enough economic incentive if we had the technology!

reply to post by Arbitrageur

No it is a good example. It shows that they were aware that impact sites can possibly yield minerals. Isn't that what this thread is about?

Originally posted by Devino
No it is a good example. It shows that they were aware that impact sites can possibly yield minerals. Isn't that what this thread is about?

I meant it's not a good example that there's any validity to the following statement you made:

Originally posted by Devino
Compare mining locations with meteor/asteroid impact sites.

You then cited the Barringer mine as an example that minerals might be mined from impact sites. That's not what the article is about. The article doesn't really say that impact sites are good places for mining operations, and in fact most of them probably aren't. Your example shows an attempt to mine at an impact site which failed dismally, so it's not a good example of any correlation between mines and impacts. It DOES, as you said, show that man had a knowledge in the past that minerals come from the sky.

The only thing I've seen useful happening at impact sites is where meteor hunters pick up the actual fragments that survived, and sell them. They are collecting the fragments and not selling them for the mineral content, but for the scientific value.

Additional processing from geological processes (such as plate tectonics, erosion, sedimentation, and volcanism) is probably the mechanism which aggregates the minerals accumulating from impacts. The impacts the article refers to happened billions of years ago and due to plate tectonics you probably can't find any 4 billion year old impact sites if you tried.

the "excess" gold which humans so covet is a fortuitous by-product of an ancient meteorite shower.

They don't say anything about any impact site, because there usually is no impact site for the vast majority of impacts. Meteor shower debris falls to the earth mostly as dust. That is what this thread is really about, it's not about mining from impact sites though that would be relevant if they actually did it, but as Barringer's example shows, impact sites don't correlate very well with mining operations.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Wow, how badly you misunderstand my post. In order to clear up your confusion I guess I need to quote myself.

Originally posted by Devino
Compare mining locations with meteor/asteroid impact sites. Look for diamond, copper, nickle, iron, coal....

This was in reply to Violence and the original post which was intended to inspire an interest in the possible connection between impact sites with mining. I don't know how many impact sites are being effectively mined but I do know there are some.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
That mine [Meteor Crater in Arizona] was a dismal failure, 27 years and millions spent and it yielded nothing.

I suppose you missed this item...
...amongst others found at that impact site. There wasn't enough concentration of material found to effectively mine there but material was found which was my point.

The only thing I've seen useful happening at impact sites is where meteor hunters pick up the actual fragments that survived, and sell them.

I suggest you try looking a little harder, or at least try looking.

Are Impact Craters Useful?

Terrestrial impact craters are important geological and geomorphological objects that are significant not only for scientific research but for industrial and commercial purposes.
...
Masaitis (1992) noted approximately 35 known terrestrial impact structures that have some form of potentially economic natural resource deposits.

Mining gold at the Vredefort Dome in South Africa

The world’s largest and oldest structure in the Vredefort Dome in South Africa at the centre of the Witwatersrand Basin. The structure is 2 million years old and is believed to have been caused by a huge asteroid which struck the Kapvaal craton, forming a crater 300 km in diameter, the largest impact structure so far known. Mineralization is confined to conglomerates and the world’s largest concentration of gold, over 50,000 tonnes extracted to date.

Diamons in Russion impact craters.

In the 1970s, diamond with lonsdaleite was discovered in the impact lithologies at the Popigai (100 km in diameter) impact structure in Siberia. This large structure is profusely charged with micro diamonds. Since then, impact diamonds have been discovered at a number of structures, e.g. Kara, Puchezh-Katunki, Reis, Sudbury, Ternovka, Zapadnaya, and others.

Dimonds in Germany

The Reis structure in Germany is a diamond –producing mine and is believed to be the result of impact, with a pipe 24 km in a diameter.

The Sudbury Basin.

The Sudbury Basin, also known as Sudbury Structure or the Sudbury Nickel Irruptive, is a major geologic structure in Ontario, Canada. It is the second-largest known impact crater or astrobleme on Earth, as well as one of the oldest.
...
The large impact crater filled with magma containing nickel, copper, platinum, palladium, gold, and other metals.

Oil found at impact sites.

Other impact structures also produce hydrocarbons. For example, the 25 km diameter Steen River structure, Canada, produces oil from two wells on the northern rim. The large diameter (180 km) Chicxulub in Mexico is known for its oil and gas accumulation. The Chicxulub crater is an ancient impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico

So there does seem to be evidence showing a connection between meteor impact sites and mining which then makes my comment relevant to this thread.

You then cited the Barringer mine as an example that minerals might be mined from impact sites.

No, this is your convoluted opinion not mine. I remember reading about Daniel Barringer and what happened at the Meteor Creator site in Arizona. It is a known impact site that did in fact bring nickle-iron to Earth from space. There wasn't enough concentrated material to effectively mine but it was there. This is one example that in fact meteorites do bring metals to Earth.

reply to post by Devino

I see you found some better examples!

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Yes, you could say that. I originally didn't want to spend the time looking for examples but you seen to have a way of inspiring me to do so.