In the ancient centuries, Egyptians nobles and kings used to consider gold to be the skin of gods and goddesses. In fact, it was used for religious items, jewelry and symbolized wealth, power, and a funerary item.
Throughout the ages, gold is considered the oldest precious metal known to humans. Moreover, it did not lose its value, as it was known as a trade currency. Additionally, it has been always a valuable mineral, because of how shiny and rare it is.
Today, science has focused on learning more about gold and its abilities. They symbolized it as Au, from the Latin word ‘aurum,’ with an atomic number of 79. This heavy metal has an attractive soft, yellow color with a bright metallic luster. It is malleable with a hardness of 2.5 on Mohs scale. Furthermore, it was found that this mineral has a relatively low reactivity with most chemicals, acids, and gases. Which contributes to its high resistance to corrosion and tarnish.
To extract gold, as it is relatively rare in the Earth’s crust, miners often find it in a relatively pure form in rock veins, hydrothermal vents or any alluvial deposits, and often found in small concentrations in rocks, soils, and waterÂ
In a nutshell, 40% of Gold in the world is in Africa, where South Africa is the 1st producer, following it other countries such as Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Mauritius, Ghana, Tunisia, Mozambique, Malawi, Burundi, and Kenya. Moreover, the highest producers in the world are China and Australia.
