What+is+gold?

Source: [] Gold is a very rare substance making up only five ten-millionths of the Earth's outer layer. //(Imagine 10 million Smarties in one place and only 5 of them were made of gold!).// Its rarity and its physical properties have made it one of the most prized of Earth's natural resources.
 * What is gold and what are the properties of gold? **

Gold, like iron, copper, lead, tin etc. is a metal. Metals are good conductors of heat and electricity and are almost all solid at room temperature.

Gold is heavy - it weighs over nineteen times more than water, and is almost twice as heavy as lead. If you had enough Gold to fill a one litre milk carton, it would weigh 19.3 kilograms, the same volume of milk weighs only one kilogram. Gold is quite soft. It is slightly harder than a fingernail but not as hard as a coin or glass.

Source: - The current price for gold is approximately $45 per gram. That means that a piece of gold that weigh the same weight as a packet of chips would be around $2000!

Source: [] There are two main types of gold. Alluvial gold is the gold found as small flakes, nuggets or dust. Buried gold is found beneath the earth's surface. ** Alluvial Gold ** This gold was once buried below the earth’s surface. Over thousands of years, rivers and creeks slowly wore away rocks containing this gold until the gold washed away rocks containing this gold until the gold washed away and settled at the bottom of them. Diggers found gold flakes and small nuggets when they washed dirt and sand from old creek and river beds. ** Buried Gold ** Once they had taken all the alluvial gold, miners started to dig in search of gold found in deep seams (** ‘ **// seams’ // means deposits of gold). The followed leads (// ‘leads’ // means gold-bearing deposits of rock) down into the earth. At first, teams of three or four would dig shafts 30metres or more deep. Later, companies were set up to extract gold from reefs (** ‘ **// reefs’ // means veins of rocks) deep underground using heavy equipment and machinery.