here's the Earth all well separated with all of the metals where they're supposed to be in the core and then this planet was salted with meteorite debris that brought Metals with it including gold that's the surprising conclusion of the origin of gold to Earth's [Music] surface even though the planet had a new supply of gold there wasn't to see because it was just too dilute the gold that there was was a tiny fraction of the Earth's crust and it was spread out around the planet it was really rare and yet billions of years later a
human could just pick up a nugget of gold out of the landscape to get from one to the other the planet had one final trick to play with only one Gra of gold for every thousand tons of the Earth's crust there had to be a way to concentrate the tiny particles of gold into the color we see today and across the surface of the planet is something that can do just [Music] that in the streams around Jamestown prospector Brent shock relies on the properties of water to seek his fortune just like the origin original Gold
Rush Pioneers in doing so he's mimicking the planetary processes that finally brought us gold just drink a little in here so this is just dirt from the side there this is it yeah so it's like a little ladder here and the stream's bouncing over the ladder it creates a low pressurea water slow go drops yes you've got your crevices here you've got your low pressure areas there with the riffles and if it's dancing a little bit but the gold can work its way down and they will grab hold of the fine gold so it's getting
caught just behind these ridges you okay and then you just look through this and look for the color yeah we look we don't put our fingers oh really don't we that's me told isn't it so this looks really simple but actually there's a very sophisticated thing going on here you're the scientist the stream can replicate natur this sets up here yes constantly eroding constantly rising and settling every time the water rises and then starts you can come out here and find gold laying on the Bedrock almost a renewable resource so we keep shoveling this stuff
in you want to look at the gold is it co is it smooth the smoother it is the farther it's traveled then you want to triangulate your way up and find out where the vein is where the source is that's what everybody wants the source of what Fe us over millions of years water picked up gold transported sorted and concentrated it and then deposited it in a form that made it easier for us to find it's a process that's still happening and drives our continued obsession with one of Earth's most alluring colors this spectacular color
has been on quite a journey these atoms have traveled From A Distant star in time to be there for the birth of the solar system and then they hit the earth in an impact which left a golden signature on our landscape and even then it didn't stop because there were sorting processes first by geology and then by water until humans could pluck nuggets like this from the landscape and still it carries on because there are atoms from Egyptian jewelry or Inca trinkets that are almost certainly part of modern wedding rings or gold bullion so the
cycling carries on but this fantastic color stays exactly the same [Music]
