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Geologists Might Have Stumbled Upon the Largest Gold Mine in the World

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Geologists Might Have Stumbled Upon the Largest Gold Mine in the World

  • A “supergiant” gold ore deposit under an existing gold mine in China could be the world’s largest gold ore deposit.
  • Officials estimate that the extent of the find could be 1,100 tons stretching as deep as 9,800 feet below the surface.
  • The find also shows promise as that of a high-quality producer of gold.

A deposit of gold ore just discovered in China isn’t just giant. It’s supergiant. So much so, in fact, that Chinese experts claim it could be the largest deposit of any precious metal—not just gold ore—in existence today.

How big is the “supergiant” deposit located under the Wangu gold field in the Hunan province? Experts estimate it at 1,100 tons.

According to Chinese state media, a team of geologists detected over 40 gold veins of roughly 330 tons of gold ore dipping 6,600 feet deep under Pingjiang County’s Wangu gold field. But 3D modeling blows that number out of the water, showing there could be as much as 1,100 tons as deep as 9,800 feet. If the models are accurate, the deposit in its entirely could be worth roughly $83 billion.

Adding some more heft to the already weighty (literally) find was the report that the new discovery features 138 grams of gold per metric ton of ore, a valuable rate not often found in gold mining. “Many drilled rock cores showed visible gold,” said Chen Rulin, an ore-prospecting expert at China’s Hunan Province’s Geological Bureau, according to Chinese state media.

If the 1,100-ton figure holds up, that makes this new find the largest gold mine in the world, even outpacing South Africa’s South Deep gold mine with its 1,025 tons of gold, according to Mining Technology. Mines in Indonesia, Russia, New Guinea, and Chile round out the top-five gold mines in the world. The Carlin Trend and Cortez gold mines, both in Nevada, are ranked sixth and 10th worldwide.

Historically, the world has mined 233,000 tons of gold, all of it still around in some form, and two-thirds of that mining has occurred since 1950.

Already the world’s top gold producer with about 10 percent of global production, China is heavily dependent on the metal, using about three times more gold than it mines annually. A rate that high requires the country to purchase so much gold from other countries that it’s also the world’s top importer of the valuable metal. This new discovery has put the world’s gold markets on notice, enough so that the price of gold rose to $2,700 per ounce, according to CCN.com.

And the gold news may not stop there. According to Liu Yongjun, vice head of the bureau, additional gold ore was found when drilling around the site’s peripheral areas.

Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland. 

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