Gold, Gold, Gold!!

I decided to post about gold, considering we don’t have any specimens at UPJ, and you never know when you might come across a seam and hit it rich. Gold is not only a mineral, it is a rare earth element, and a metal. This means that a sample of entirely pure gold contains ONLY atoms of gold, no atoms of any other element, whereas a mineral is a mixture of many various elements. Gold is the most malleable and ductile of all metals. A single ounce, just over 28 grams, can be beaten into a sheet nearly 5 meters on each side! This gold sheet is only a few atoms thick. Gold has been praised for millenia for its beauty and malleability, making it useful for jewelry and decorations. It’s atomic number is 79, and it’s atomic mass (the number of protons and neutrons) is 196.966