Under the right conditions, veins of gold can form in just a few tenths of a second, writes Richard Lovett at Nature News. The key is the massive changes in below-ground pressure that can accompany an earthquake. Under the right conditions, water vaporizes, leaving behind crystallized minerals.

  • Antinous / Moderator

    Indeed!

  • http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

    I sense howls of validation from the creationists.

  • RElgin

    Creationists nothing.  How about the alchemists?

  • niktemadur

    Emphasis on veins, the gold which was already there just suddenly clumps together.

    Gold is created in a mad instant when a Type II Supernova is underway, it’s the unbelievably hot outward shock of the explosion that compresses Iron (the last element to be fused in the core) into heavier elements.
    Furthermore, the heavier the element the rarer, meaning that the temperature and pressure to fuse Copper lasted way longer than the conditions to fuse Gold, not to mention Uranium, the rarest of them all, yeah?
    Ballpark figure, let’s say that if all Copper in a Type II Supernova is created in 5 seconds, all Gold is created in a thousandth of a second, all Uranium in a millionth of a second.

    Maggie got it right, but if you Google it, some “news sources” are saying gold is created in these earthquakes.  Ugh.

    • awjt

      That’s awesome!   All I care about is if one of these gold veins instantaneously occurs in my bank account.

    • Boundegar

      As if this is Minecraft.