14 DAY TRIAL // A report published in the journal Geothermics earlier this month details the discovery of gold and silver deposits under volcanoes in New Zealand.
The deposits were found by an international team of researchers studying the geothermal system of the Taupo Volcanic Zone on New Zealand's North Island.
Having quantified how much gold and silver lie hidden in the underground in this region, the scientists argue that mining is not just possible but, more importantly, worth it.
Thus, they estimate New Zealand's Tuapo Volcanic Zone could deliver about $3 billion (€2.6 billion) worth of gold and $3.5 billion (€3 billion) worth of silver annually, Phys Org reports.
Admittedly, mining for gold under volcanoes can be a bit tricky, but the researchers insist that, given the right technologies and the proper equipment, it can be done.
“New technologies need to be developed to extract the metals from the flow stream of production wells without interfering with geothermal energy production for continued metal extraction to be feasible.”
“The alternative is to let precious metals accumulate in two-phase pipelines, to be recovered in intervals, when practical for Steam field operations and optimal in terms of profitability,” they write in their report.
So, how did the gold and the silver get there?
It's long been known that subsurface rocks in the Tuapo Volcanic Zone in New Zealand hide gold and silver. However, previous investigations failed to locate deposits worth mining. Instead, it was believed that there was simply too little gold and silver in the area to be worth digging for.
As it turns out, this is not the case. According to this latest study in the journal Geothermics, heated water in this volcanic zone has been breaking down rocks for many years now, releasing the precious metals in them and guiding them deep inside the reservoirs under local volcanoes.
Of the six reservoirs the researchers focused on while investigating the geothermal system under the Tuapo Volcanic Zone, those under the sites Rotokawa and Mokai were found to be rich enough to produce an estimate 680 to 7,500 kilograms (around 1,500 to 16,500 pounds) of gold per year.
