Posted on 06/14/2018 3:44:29 PM PDT by bananaman22
Gold is one of the rarest elements in the world, making up roughly 0.003 parts per million of the earth’s crust. But how much gold is the world digging up each year and what countries produce the most?
In 2017, global gold mine production was a reported 3,247 tonnes. This figure is down 5 tonnes from the previous year and marks the first annual drop since 2008, according to the GFMS Gold Survey 2018. The driving forces behind the drop in output were environmental concerns, crackdowns on illegal mining operations and rising costs.
This raises the question I’ve explored recently – have we reached peak gold?
(Excerpt) Read more at safehaven.com ...
The easy gold has been found. The hard stuff is way, way down.
The show on TV shows the work to get 1,000 ounces. And that is just sifting dirt.
I saw a statement somewhere once that claimed that all of the gold ever mined in the history of the world would fit into a 60’x60’ cube. But if annual global production is over 3,000 tons, I find that claim very hard to believe.
When I moved to Colorado many years ago, I picked up a book on Colorado ghost towns. It had a brief history of each location, along with topographical maps and descriptions of the condition of the sites today. Some of the stories told of the first prospectors to arrive in the area finding “free gold” in the form of nuggets that they could just pick up off the ground. Of course, some of those stories were possibly exaggerations told to lure people to the area, but I don’t doubt that others were true.
For some reason, I thought South Africa would be higher.
A 15 inch cube of gold weighs a ton. So 3,000 tons is almost 6,000 cubic feet per year. A 60’ x ‘60’ x 60’ cube is 216,000 square feet - so the claim is very plausible, even though it sounds far-fetched.
You might want to look at that carefully and revise it. Spot your error yet? (Hint, what would the height of your cube be if it was 216,000 square feet but had the volume of a 60x60x60 foot cube?)
Here’s another clue:
500 x 432 feet would give you your 216,000 footprint (other number would also work.) If x*y=216,000 square feet,
x*y / (60*60*60) = z, with z being a constant.
Is gold production slowing because the mines are petering out, or could there be other reasons having to do with, say, the country's politics and culture?
Surprised Uzbekistan isn’t on the list. They were the Soviet Union’s biggest producer. Guess the current regime has let the industry run down.
I don’t know, those numbers would get us to the volume of the 60’ cube in just 36 years, and the claim I heard was that all gold ever mined in history would fit within it.
I always hoped that Sheriff Joe would have used his prisoners to pick cotton.
Deep in my heart I still know that somewhere in deep Siberia, there is still a mountain stream that has never seen by human eyes. Nuggets the size of golf balls lay right there for the taking.
Opinion piece from Forbes.
“Gold Is ‘Money’ Because It Is Plentiful, Not Because It Is Scarce”
It kinda makes sense. A ton is a 14 inch cube. Very roughly, that 60x60 foot cube growing a foot taller each year would account for 3000 tons. And it’s easy to imagine that humanity mines more gold than ever before due to the massive machinery involved.
The 49ers did little more than scratch the surface of a continent and take the fairly easy stuff with the technology of the day.
Mexico is number nine. It is amazing how rich Mexico is in natural resources. They have gold, silver, minerals, oil, and the best fishing waters in the world. They have arable land. They have fresh water flowing down from snow capped mountains. They can grow every crop that grows in California plus coffee, bananas, pineapple, and other tropical fruits that do not grow in California.
I hope that Trumps throws these facts into the faces of the cleptocrats who run that country.
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