After stories like the largest gold nugget ever found or the recent 2.6-kilogram discovery by an amateur Australian goldfisher, you might think we’ve discovered enormous gold reserves on Earth so far. But let me tell you from the beginning, you are wrong…
It may surprise you to learn that all of the gold ever discovered by humanity could fit inside a relatively small cube measuring 23 meters by 23 meters. But this relatively small cube would weigh as much as eight times the Statue of Liberty.
The estimated amount of gold mined throughout history is said to be 187,000 tons, and the total amount discovered is 244,000 tons. And thanks to gold’s nearly indestructible nature and ability to be recycled, nearly all of it still remains in humanity’s hands.
About 2,756 to 3,307 tons of gold are mined each year, and more than 30 percent of all gold comes from the Witwatersrand Basin mine in South Africa. Currently the largest gold miner is China, while the largest single gold mining complex is Barrick Gold’s Nevada Gold Mines, which produces a whopping 99,223 kilograms per year.
Gold is found in abundance in the earth’s crust at an abundance of 0.0013 parts per million. While this rate may seem rather rare, it’s worth noting that for comparison, the rarest precious metal only has 0.000037 parts per million.
Gold that remains underground is measured either as “reserves” that are economical to mine at current gold prices, or as “resources” that require further research to determine whether they are economical or must be sold at a higher price.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates underground reserves to be around 57,000 tons, which is roughly 20 percent of the gold discovered and not yet mined. It also means that we could potentially extract all currently known gold reserves in a little over 17 years.
However, advances in mining technology both facilitate the discovery of new reserves and make the extraction of resources more economical, so it is not thought that we will be able to extract all the gold on Earth anytime soon.
A second gold rush
Mining companies are now flocking to Victoria, Australia, in what they call a “second gold rush”. Here, they use updated understandings of rock formation to better predict the location of gold reserves, and today’s modern drilling equipment yields higher yields.
Also, there are a number of gold reserves on Earth that we know are uneconomical for mining and likely not to be economical in the foreseeable future.
Known deposits in Antarctica will require extensive equipment and risk being rolled back in the continent’s harsh climate. Similarly, it is thought that there are gold deposits on the ocean floor, but since there is no reasonable way to reach these deposits, the income will not justify these studies.
When we look at places farther from Earth, we see that there are also gold reserves on the Moon. Although it is planned to establish a base on the Moon in the future, currently mining lunar-gold will cost much more than the market value.
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