AMNH Screenshot
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A major exhibit on gold opens this weekend at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. This is a multidisciplinary exhibit that integrates geology, culture, history, industrial processes, economics, psychology and many other disciplines. It also integrates with permanent collections that are on display throughout the museum. The exhibit will continue through August, 2007 and then travel extensively.
Special programs for educators are planned. These will feature ways that gold can be used as a multidisciplinary learning theme. Materials for student use both at the museum and in classrooms are available for download at the Museum website.
AMNH Exhibit Map
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Gold Themes Featured
- Aurum Naturae: a fantastic collection of natural gold specimens exhibiting the forms that gold can take in nature.
- Incomparable Gold: explores the unique properties of gold, gold rushes and gold mining.
- Golden Ages: features a collection of gold objects collected from across the ages and from all parts of the world.
- Lost and Found: gold treasures salvaged from shipwrecks.
- Gold Standard: the use of gold as coinage and currency backing throughout the world and over time.
- Golden Achievement: a collection of gold awards presented for cultural achievement.
Learn more about the
Gold Exhibit at the AMNH website.
Labels: Gold
Cell Phone Image by USGS
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Cell phones are everywhere and nearly one billion new phones will be sold this year. Cell Phones have a very short life-span and most are retired within 18 months. What is happening to all of these used, broken or obsolete cell phones? Less than one percent of them are being recycled. Most are taking up space in desk drawers, however USGS believes that there is a good opportunity to recycle them.
A number of metals are used to manufacture the phones. Primary metals include: copper, iron, nickel, silver and zinc. Minor metals include: aluminum, gold, lead, manganese, palladium, platinum and tin. The scrap metal value of each phone is about 70 cents based upon the contained metal content (gold - 40 cents; palladium - 13 cents; silver - 6 cents; copper - 3 cents; and, platinum - 1 cent) - and the prices of many metals used in cell phones are rising rapidly. Considering that an estimated 130 million cell phones were retired in 2005, a scrap value of over $110 million worth of metals is going to waste!
Recovery and recycling of cell phones is in the early stages of development because they have only been recently recognized as a resource. However, if a procedure can be developed to recycle them, some money might be made and our use of virgin metals could be reduced.
Millions of Cell Phones Sold Annually - Image by USGSRead the USGS factsheet on
Recycled Cell PhonesLabels: Gold, Minerals
Barrick Gold Corporation of Canada is the world's largest mining company. They currently have a proposal to go after 17 million ounces of gold located beneath glacial ice in
Chile. The original idea was to break up the glaciers and then mine the gold but that may be moved to mining methods which do not disturb the ice.
Read more at
MSN.comLabels: Glaciers, Gold
