Rivers Ran with Gold... 3 Billion Years Ago

An anonymous reader writes "If you're looking to strike it rich, then perhaps this article in Nature magazine will be of assistance. It seems that three billion years ago there was no life on land and no oxygen in the atmosphere. But the rivers ran with gold."

Eureka!

[Locke!Erasmus]

Now if I can just find that Slashdot article on how to build a time machine, I'll come back and have so much money I'll make Bill Gates envious!!!

Re:Eureka!

[rumba]

Greedhead, you are so funny.

Also

[thewheeze]

Trees were ripe with platinum, and grass was full of silver.

Yeah....right...

HAHAHAHAHAH

[Locke!Erasmus]

Everyone was on the CEO pay scale too, right?

hahahahah

Meteorite?

[AJWM]

a meteorite struck the basin about 2 billion years ago.

And they don't seem to think this might have had something to do with it too? The Sudbury Basin around Sudbury, Ontario was formed by meteor impact (about 1.85 billion years ago), and is one of the world's largest sources of nickel and other metals like copper, silver, platinum group and gold. Coincidence? What other metals are found at the South Africa site?

Duh

[astrotek]

you think deposits are formed by rain? lol

Nature magazine self-destructs.

[Futurepower(R)]

"Rivers ran with gold three billion years ago"

Nature magazine has decided to trash its formerly good reputation by giving a sensational title to a mildly interesting article.

Obligatory Simpsons Quote

[Eigenray]

Abe [snpp.com] : Hah! The way people act around here, you'd think the streets were paved with gold.
Jasper: They are.

As if to prove Jasper's point, a car tries unsuccessfully to brake, but the shiny street surface is too slippery.

That old story!

[aminorex]

The reducing atmosphere theory was
refuted decades ago. Well, it just goes to show
you that it takes more than good science to
drive out bad: It takes a whole lot of active
scientific education of the public as well.
I do think that science journalism does more
harm to public understanding than good -- and
this article is an example of why. It's main
topical content is fairly well researched, and
appears accurate to me as a non-specialist, but
it's very subtitle loudly proclaims a known
falsehood, in sensationalistic terms which will
do more to delude the casual reader than the
content will ever do to educate her.

Bummer deal.

Re:Reducing atmosphere

[fluffy666]

Given that many deposits of Archean age show evidence of being deposited in a reducing environment - the oxidation states of iron, for example.

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2001ESP/finalprogram/s es sion_182.htm

*how* reducing, and for how long, is another matter. This is called 'an area of scientific research'.

Re:Reducing atmosphere

[aminorex]

And at the same conference, you will find overwhelming evidence of oxygenated oceans 4 billion years ago.

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2001ESP/finalprogram/a bs tract_7459.htm

Hint: The oxygenation state of the atmosphere is
much more closely linked to that of the oceans
than that of rocks.

Re:Reducing atmosphere

[fluffy666]

Interesting that you should pick out one paper...

Never mind.

Reducing Atmosphere?

[blitz77]

Most scientists nowadays agree that the atmosphere was not reducing. Take a read of the following: - For a long time it was thought that the early Earth had a reducing atmosphere. A reducing atmosphere contains reductants, or molecules saturated with hydrogen atoms, which are able to reduce other molecules. Many scientists believed that the atmosphere consisted of CH4, NH3, and H2. This is the mixture of gases Miller and Urey used in 1953 to mimic the conditions of the early earth. Their experiment showed that abiotic molecules could be used to create important biotic compounds thought to be necessary for the origin of life. from http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiolo gy/PBearth.html [duke.edu]