Natural Gold Nugget
Western Australia
56 gms.
Gold. It’s the noblest of elemental metals. It can be stretched into a wire one atom wide. Scientists think our gold originated from supernovas and colliding neutron stars. The gold in South Africa likely came from a gold-bearing asteroid that struck 2.2 billion years ago.
Gold has been used in jewelry for over 5,000 years, and began in Egypt. Gold as money was first issued in Lydia around 560 BC. It’s use spread to nearly every civilization, until it stopped in the 1930s.
The discoveries of gold in California (1848), Australia (1851), Colorado (1858), and Alaska (1896) brought a rush of people from all over the world to dig.
Today, sophisticated metal detectors can uncover everything from bits of gold dust to a nugget weighing 60 pounds, found in Australia and called the ‘Hand of Faith’. It is with a metal detector that the museum’s gold nugget was found.
This natural gold nugget comes from Western Australia. It weighs 56 grams, or about 1.8 Â troy ounces. Only about 4% of gold found worldwide are nuggets, and most are less than one ounce.
This specimen was acquired for the museum from Kristalle of Laguna Beach, California. It was subsequently sold at auction in 2012.