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Tag: formation

  • Gold Beneath Waves: Seawater’s Role in Precious Metal Formation

    Gold Beneath Waves: Seawater’s Role in Precious Metal Formation

    Close your eyes and you can imagine a world in which gold is present in the cracks of the seafloor. Scientists have found an important way that seawater helps form gold and it is considered one of our planet’s most precious materials. A team of scientists journeyed to the northwestern British Columbia, where they set out to gather and study ancient ore-bearing rocks.

    gold formation

    The deposit was initially formed in a submarine oceanic island arc about 183 million years ago, brought up from below by plate tectonic processes. The detailed study showed that the ancient geological artifacts were the result of the powerful oceans. The researchers tracked how seawater eventually percolated into the Earth’s crust. Researchers in his group determined how seawater had made its way down into the Earth’s crust. They combined with ore fluids before this interaction forged gold.

    The research study’s co-author is Anthony Williams-Jones, who is a professor at McGill University in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. “These rocks, dating back to the Early Jurassic period, are hosted in volcanic and sedimentary formations,” said Professor Williams-Jones. “Using high-resolution mass spectrometry, we decoded their unique chemical signatures. The finding of seawater-triggered gold is surprising.”

    Finding gold in curdled milk
    This discovery is not a standalone revelation. It follows a find from about six months back when the gold formation was discovered to be surprisingly akin to milk curdling, a widespread and well-understood process. Gold nanoparticles come together like proteins in milk.

    Scientists more found that it lies with the sodium ions abundant in seawater. Sodium ions spur the gold nanoparticles to coalesce with a similar effect as the process of acid-making in the souring of milk. “In our new study, we found that sodium ions in seawater cause gold nanoparticles to clump together and it is acting like the acid in the souring of milk, and eventually forming gold veins,” said lead author Duncan McLeish.

  • The Milky Way’s Origins: Advances in Galaxy Formation Research

    The Milky Way’s Origins: Advances in Galaxy Formation Research

    Astronomers are using powerful computers to simulate how galaxies formed from the Big Bang until now, 13.8 billion years later. These simulations have some errors. To fix them, a team of researchers from Lund University and other institutions spent eight years and a lot of time.

    Galaxy Formation

    In the past ten years, there have been massive improvements in computer simulations that can show how galaxies form. These simulations are very important for understanding where galaxies, stars, and planets come from. But sometimes, the predictions from these simulations have mistakes because the computers cannot show everything perfectly.

    To make better simulations, 160 researchers from 60 universities worked together. They compared their simulations and looked for mistakes. The leaders of this project are Santi Roca-Fàbrega from Lund University, Ji-hoon Kim from Seoul National University, and Joel R. Primack from the University of California.

    They found out that the gas around galaxies is more important than the number of stars in the galaxy. This is different from what people used to think. This project took eight years and used a lot of computer time. But the researchers are happy with what they found.

    They published three papers in The Astrophysical Journal about their work. They looked at how a galaxy the same size as the Milky Way formed. They used the same ideas about stars, gas, and light as other simulations. Their new results show that galaxies like the Milky Way formed early in the universe’s history. They also solved a problem about small galaxies going around bigger ones.

    They want to keep working to make even better simulations of galaxy formation. With better simulations, they hope to learn more about our galaxy, the Milky Way. This is just the beginning of understanding how galaxies form.