Money can’t grow on trees or can it? A recent discovery in Clayton, Australia proves that it is possible to find gold in tree leaves. Gold discovery has significantly dropped over the last ten years, and it is more expensive to find new gold sites. This situation has raised concerns that there wouldn’t be enough mines to replace the old ones when they run dry. However, Australia’s national science agency CSIRO research team lead by geochemist Melvyn Lintern can help with locating new gold deposits.This is the first time the gold in such concentration has been detected in the tissue of a living being.
They studied several eucalyptus trees around established gold dig sites and found out that eucalyptus trees can draw gold particles from deep in the soil through water that is absorbed by their roots. Eucalyptus roots can be as much as 50 meters deep into the earth and bring tiny gold particles high in the air. This precious metal was found in the vascular system and cells of leaves by using a detector for X-ray elemental imaging. The gold is harmful to the tree so it is spread to leaves and bark to reduce the poisonous effects. The gold traces found in eucalyptus leaves are very small. Their size is merely one fifth the diameter of a human hair, and they are invisible to the naked eye.
This finding is unlikely to cause gold rush in Australia because of the small amount of gold the eucalyptus tree can hold. For example, to make a wedding ring, one would need to collect gold from more than 500 eucalyptus trees. However, it might be an indication that there are tonnes of gold underneath the roots of the tree. The leaf samples were collected at various locations in and around Freddo Gold Prospect in western Australia, which has higher gold concentration, but is undisturbed by mining. The leaves of the trees around the area showed lower concentration of gold than the leaves from trees growing directly on the deposit.
The study also suggests that other minerals such as zinc and copper could be possibly found in tree leaves. This method can come in handy because it doesn’t require drilling to locate possible metal reserves. That would make finding mineral deposits more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. Most of the gold on the Earth is located deeper than eucalyptus tree leaves could show because high density of metal would sink in the soil. However, there is a large bulk of gold deposits that are not so deep in the ground that have been deposited there recently by meteorite collision with the Earth.
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