Saturday 21 September 2013

Where is the gold from ?


After I saw a title of this story "Meteorites delivered gold to Earth" this morning that made me curious how the gold begins on our planet.

A study from the University of Bristol looked at some of the oldest rocks on Earth,it shows that gold begins before the Earth formation, and meteorites brought gold to the Earth.


The "Impact theory" explains that the Earth formed around 4.55 billion years ago by a snowball-effect then the Earth was impacted by a enormous meteorite, large as Mars size, around 3.9 billion years ago, finished the Earth formation and our moon was begun, and gold was delivered to our planet by this meteorite.

Before I read this article, I have known That gold can not begin on the Earth, after the Earth formed, because it takes time more than Earth's life,around 4.5 billion years, to begin gold whereas I have another idea where the gold is from, It is one of the materials which formed our planet suck as iron, tungsten, platinum and osmium etc. That means it has already had before the birth of this planet.


There is one thing I really wonder when talking about gold is why gold is an precious material not even now. Many ancient civilizations believed gold is the most precious thing in the world, the Civilization
of Ancient Egypt, the mask of the king "Tutankhamun"  who is dead and turned to be a mummy is made by gold and covered it on his face.







Inca Empire "ancient civilization in Peru over 1438 - 1533", they made many things from gold, especially using in religious ceremony. In 1533, Inca ancient was occupied by Spanish and they took almost golden objects returning to their country.




Ayutthaya Kingdom, the second capital of Thailand between 1351 to 1767, They made king's accessories by gold and also used gold to enamel the wall of the temple, palace and particularly the buddha statue.

Finally, I still wonder why they chose the gold not other materials or someone outside the world has sent the letters to tell them ?


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Reference
Leila Battison. Meteorites delivered gold to Earth. (8, September 2011). BBC New Science & EnvironmentRetrieved September 21, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14827624

9 comments:

  1. The ancient Inca figures look very cheerful. Is that because they are made of gold, or for some other reason?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is not because they are mede of gold, because of their smile.

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  2. I think the gold is only the one kind of rock if human do not give the high value on them. When I though of every luxury things in the world, most of them set up from the believe of people that it more precious than others.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for your comment. Do you have some gold ? I have many rocks, I want to exchange with your gold. Haha Im kidding na

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    2. I think behavioural economists have some interesting insights as to how and why things are given value by human beings. Having read Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, Pop might remember what Ariely's research discovered on this: the title of Ariely's book is telling.

      Maybe we should read one of his essays this term.

      Delete
  3. according to Impact theory, I hope some small gold meteorite fall onto my garden yard. haha

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  4. Your last question is very interesting and I wonder to know too. Gold is a valuable thing for long time but I think few of peoples know why,like economist. In my opinion, may be gold is the thing that represent very precious stuff because when the human's social expanded, they have to find something symbolize valuable thing according to the expanded social.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like Ong's verb choice here: symbolize.
      What might this suggest about gold, and perhaps also about the human act of valuing more generally?

      But why choose gold for this symbolic function?

      Delete
  5. I think gold is very valuable because, in the past, they used gold to make accessories for kings not only because its appearance was beautiful, very shiny with unique yellow color, or easy to change into complex form like necklace or crown but it was also not harmful for human's health, most people do not allergy to gold.

    ReplyDelete

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