Conventionally, companies have to dig and drill to determine if there’s a possibility of gold deposits in a given area. Now, however, scientists believe that plants may be critically helpful in finding such deposits.
Recently, researchers accidentally stumbled across a eucalyptus tree with exceptionally high concentrations of gold. When they further looked into the matter, they found that there was a sizable gold deposit around 100 feet beneath the plant. Apparently, the plant had accumulated high amounts of gold over time because of this deposit.
Commenting on the find, a geochemist from Australia Melvyn Lintern said, “Finding such high concentrations of gold in the foliage of this tree growing over a gold deposit buried beneath 35 meters of weathered rock was a complete surprise.”
Scientists now estimate that since plants can accumulate gold from the nearby deposits, they may prove to be an effective tool in finding gold. Although the notion has been surfaced in the past, it was never proved that plants can accumulate significant amounts of gold from a nearby deposit.
This fresh find has finally proved that plants can point the way to a viable deposit. Moreover, from an economic point of view, this discovery is of immense importance. If companies finally replaced their digging and drilling with a method of simply sampling the leaves of the plants on the surface, this will drastically reduce their gold-finding costs and help them stay environment-friendly. Moreover, such sampling could be done as often as is needed and in varying circumstances.
Source: Nature
Courtesy: PopSci
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