RARE they may be, but it appears some gold deposits form with surprising alacrity.
At least half of all known deposits formed when hot, pressurised water that had picked up gold elsewhere in the crust fizzled through rock to deposit the metal in veins. It was not clear, though, how concentrated the gold in the water usually is or how quickly deposits can form.
To find out, Stuart Simmons and Kevin Brown from the University of Auckland in New Zealand studied an active deposit at Ladolam on Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea. “It’s the only known gold deposit being hosted…
