Marine treasure hunters claim to have located the SS Port Nicholson, a Britsh ship that was torpedoed by a German submarine in 1942. It was carrying over $2 billion in precious metals and industrial diamonds.
This video shows how Raffi Stepanian finds gold and diamonds in the cracks of Manhattan sidewalks. I don’t know if he really making 300 bucks per day but his techniques are interesting!
It has been said that for all of the money in circulation today, four times that amount has been lost, hidden or buried.
The Afghan Ministry of Mines has been inviting companies to bid on contracts to mine the copper and gold in portions of Badakhshan, Ghazni, Herat, Balkh and Sar-e-Pul Provinces. Billions of dollars worth of metals could be in these areas but there are significant infrastructure and security problems.
Goldmining companies in Australia are having trouble finding enough people who are able to handle the demands of working in underground gold mines. This story on the Wall Street Journal website explains why new miners are making six digit salaries.
An article on the MarketWatch website reports that gold is attracting more and more investors in their 20s and 30s. It suggests that they are Generation AU.
An article on the Watertown Daily Times website reviews the internship experiences of three geology students who spent last summer working at gold mines in Alaska and Nevada.
Stephen Blumberg, a jeweler in Quincy, Massachusetts, explains how the high price of gold has changed the traffic in his jewelry store and the types of things that people are buying.
Record gold prices close to $2000 per ounce lured lots of gold jewelry and gold scrap into the market. Now that these items are being melted and cast into bars the ultra secure storage vaults typically used to store gold are in great demand.
The high price of gold has turned prospecting into a hobby, a part-time job and a retirement occupation for many people. This video visits some locations in Washington state where prospecting and related activities have attracted the new gold bugs.
“The risk list gives a quick indication of the relative risk in 2011 to the supply of the chemical elements or element groups which we need to maintain our economy and lifestyle.” Quoted from the British Geological Survey news release.
“Ultra high precision analyses of some of the oldest rock samples on Earth by researchers at the University of Bristol provides clear evidence that the planet’s accessible reserves of precious metals are the result of a bombardment of meteorites more than 200 million years after the Earth was formed.” Quoted from the University of Bristol news release.
Copper deposits in the Gobi Desert have been known for hundreds of years. Now a large mine that will produce copper and gold is expected to increase Mongolia’s economic output by over 30%. Local people worry that the mine will disturb their water supplies and way of life.
In 1971 the United States went off of the gold standard. With that the US Dollar was not backed by its value in gold and was instead back by promissory authority of the US government.
Gold in Newfoundland
August 22, 2011 | Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Natural Resources
“The Island of Newfoundland represents an emerging underexplored gold district, where focused exploration for precious metals was essentially non-existent prior to the early 1980′s.” Quoted from the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Natural Resources fact sheet.
Newfoundland and Labrador is geologically diverse and is richly endowed with a wide spectrum of minerals, including iron ore, base and precious metals, uranium, tungsten, molybdenum, antimony, rare earths and industrial minerals. [...] Yet it remains relatively under-explored compared with other mineral-rich jurisdictions, thus creating a unique opportunity for mineral resource investment and new mineral finds.
The spot price of gold hit a record high of $1,833.81 today. The price of gold has doubled since late 2007 and since the beginning of June it has risen about 19%.
“UCLA researchers and their colleagues from China and Japan have shown that by incorporating gold nanoparticles into these organic photovoltaics — taking advantage of the plasmonic effect, by which metal helps to enhance the absorption of sunlight — they can significantly improve the cells’ power conversion.” Quoted from the UCLA news release.
An article on the Reuters website reports that central banks around the world have purchased about 180 tonnes of gold during 2011 – while gold prices are setting all-time records. Thailand, Mexico, Russia and Korea have been very aggressive gold buyers.
Every gold prospector knows that the high specific gravity of gold can cause small nuggets to become trapped in cracks and crevices for long periods of time. Recently a sewer pipe broke in Jackson, North Carolina and repair workers found a class ring that was accidentally flushed down a toilet fifty years earlier just a short distance away.
Gold continued its steady rise in price today by breaking $1600 for the first time. The closing price was $1602.40 – a gain of $12.30. Since 2001 the price of gold has risen 500%.
Gold rose to a new all time high today after the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee said that they might consider new monetary policy stimulus to reduce the unemployment rate.
The Washington Nugget is an 8.2 pound gold nugget that was auctioned last month for $460,000. The location where it was found has been kept secret but the 180 acre property will be evaluated next month and put up for sale.
Some analysts are predicting a $5000 per ounce gold price by the end of this decade. They point to increasing affluence in Asia, cultural traditions, economic uncertainty and political instability as driving forces.
Gold hit a new intraday record yesterday, breaking $1500, before settling at a record closing price of $1495.10. Economic and political uncertainty has caused many people to invest in gold.
Last week gold set new price records on four consecutive days, reaching $1474 per ounce on Friday. Silver reached $40.46 per ounce, the highest price seen since 1980.
Twenty-five percent of the gold mined in Peru is thought to be produced illegally. In a recent campaign against illegal miners about 1000 government troops seized or destroyed 20 dredges valued at several million dollars.
The New York Times has an article titled “Federal Royalties for Gold and Copper?”. It explores the idea of the federal government collecting royalties on mineral extracted from federal lands. Since passage of the 1872 mining law, royalties have not been paid.
“The General Mining Law of 1872 declared all valuable mineral deposits in land belonging to the United States to be free and open to exploration and purchase. This law provides citizens of the United States the opportunity to explore for, discover and purchase certain valuable mineral deposits on the public lands.
The 1872 Mining Law also provided for the transfer of the land upon which a mining claim has been filed – as opposed to the minerals which were claimed – from federal to private ownership provided certain provisions were met. Transfers of land ownership – acquiring a patent to the land – are currently prohibited by a congressionally-imposed moratorium until Congress determines whether the law should be changed.” Quoted from the Bureau of Land Management website.
Gold prices are near record highs and miners at the Gold Fields Ltd. gold mine in South Africa are about to set a record for the deepest underground mine. They are approaching a depth of 2.5 miles.
Last year a man in Nevada City, California found a 100-ounce gold nugget on his property. It’s going to be sold at auction on March 15th in Sacramento. It is expected to sell for between $225,000 and $400,000.
Barrick Gold’s Cortez mine in Nevada produced over one million ounces of gold last year. This video takes you underground and gives you a quick look at the process that removes finely disseminated gold from the ore.
Global gold production for 2010 was a record 2652 tonnes. However, above ground inventories are not increasing which could support higher gold prices in 2011.
A California prospector plans to sell a 100-ounce gold nugget at auction on March 15. IT could be the largest nugget in existence today in the State of California. Based upon its weight the nugget would be worth about $135,000 at current gold prices but it is expected to bring much more because it is a museum piece.
In this CNN interview Aaron Regent, President and CEO of Barrick Gold, explains how much money and planning is required to explore and develop a new mining location – and how gold price expectations figure into their planning.
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