Earth’s Core Is Leaking Gold - And It’s Rising Up! - video Dailymotion

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Deep beneath our feet, something incredible is happening — Earth’s core is leaking gold, and it’s rising up toward the surface. Scientists have discovered that hidden processes inside our planet are pushing precious metals through layers of rock, rewriting what we thought we knew about Earth’s interior. In this video, we’ll explore how this strange phenomenon works, why it matters for geology, and what it reveals about the restless engine powering our world. Stick around, because Earth’s hidden treasure is far more mysterious than we ever imagined.  Credit: Gold Foil: By NASA/JPL, https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia14055-gold-foil-on-aquarius-reflector/ CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0: Ruthenium crystals: By Periodictableru, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9774316 CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/: Kroisos: By Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74443716 CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0: Bullion Repository: By Chris Light, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48539561 Free Art License 1.3 https://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/: Ruthenium: By Alchemist-hp, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9915539 CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0: Scales: By lauraa36five/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/6XEEW Earth Core V2: By Ipay/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/6USXB Animation is created by Bright Side. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV  Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Our Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

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00:00So, here's a quick question. Where's the biggest stash of gold on Earth?

00:06Well, thanks to the movies, my first thoughts go to Fort Knox, the iconic U.S. vault known for its security and secrecy.

00:14But no, that's not it. Potentially, more than 99% of Earth's gold might not be in any vault.

00:22It's likely hidden deep inside the planet, in the core.

00:26And now, scientists say, we might not need to dig 1,800 miles to get to it.

00:32Because some of that gold, it might be making its way up, oozing through a volcano.

00:38But first, what makes gold so interesting and valuable?

00:42Well, gold has always been more than just a shiny metal.

00:45It shaped economies and driven empires.

00:48The first pure gold coins were created in 540 BCE by King Croesus of Lydia,

00:55an Iron Age kingdom located in what is now modern-day Turkey.

00:59As a metal, it's rare, but not too rare.

01:03It's a great conductor of electricity and heat.

01:06It doesn't rust, tarnish, or react much with anything.

01:11It's easy to melt, mold, carry, and measure.

01:14And on top of all that, it's beautiful, durable, and incredibly useful.

01:19Not just for jewelry, but also in electronics, medicine, and space tech.

01:25Yep, it's even used to coat astronaut helmet visors and spacecraft to reflect harmful infrared radiation.

01:33Humans have mined about 200,000 tons of gold,

01:37which is enough to make a cube that's roughly 72 feet on each side.

01:41Since gold doesn't really break down, a lot of the gold we use today could actually be really old,

01:49even dating back to prehistoric times.

01:52It's also one of the most hoarded and secretly stashed valuables on Earth.

01:56Between private collections, national reserves, and heirloom jewelry passed down through generations,

02:02we might never know exactly how much is really out there.

02:06But we do assume that 99.99% of it is still trapped within Earth's core.

02:13So, how can there be gold within the core, and what does that mean?

02:19Right under our feet is Earth's outer skin, the crust.

02:23It might feel solid and massive to us, but compared to the rest of the planet, it's paper thin.

02:28Beneath that is the mantle, which is basically a giant layer of hot rock.

02:35It's not quite solid, not quite liquid, more like a slow-moving putty that flows over time.

02:42Then we have the outer core, which is a swirling sea of molten metal, mostly iron and nickel.

02:48It's spinning around and creating Earth's magnetic field.

02:51And in the very center is the inner core, a solid metal ball, hotter than the surface of the Sun,

02:58but still solid because the pressure down there is extremely high.

03:03When Earth was first forming, it was super hot.

03:07So hot that the entire planet was like a giant cosmic lava lamp, bubbling with molten metal and rock.

03:14In that state, every element could move freely, and the heaviest one sank toward the center.

03:19Gold, along with other dense metals like platinum and ruthenium, is really heavy.

03:24So those metals naturally sank to the core in a process called planetary differentiation.

03:31Think of it like oil and water in a bottle.

03:34If you shake it and then let it settle, the heavier substance sinks to the bottom,

03:38and the lighter one rises to the top.

03:40In Earth's case, lighter materials floated upward and eventually formed the crust.

03:46Now, gold has a really cool characteristic.

03:49It really likes to stick to iron.

03:52That's why scientists call gold a sidrophile, which literally means gold-loving.

03:57So when iron started sinking, gold followed it down, straight to the center of the planet.

04:04On top of that, gold is super heavy, nearly 20 times heavier than water.

04:09So gravity helped pull it even deeper.

04:12That's why today, the Earth's crust only has tiny traces of gold,

04:17while the other 99% remains unreachable in the core, 1,800 miles below our feet.

04:23But that's not all.

04:26Some theories suggest that maybe 200 million years after Earth was formed,

04:31the planet got hit by a bunch of metal-rich meteorites.

04:35Those space rocks were loaded with gold.

04:37And since Earth's crust had already cooled by then,

04:41that gold stayed near the surface.

04:43And we've been using it ever since.

04:44So if most of Earth's gold is trapped below,

04:49what exactly was discovered oozing out?

04:52Well, scientists recently studied volcanic rocks in Hawaii.

04:56And they found out that these rocks contained a rare version of the element ruthenium,

05:01which is called ruthenium-100.

05:04Now, this little isotope isn't something you usually find hanging out near the surface.

05:08It has a kind of chemical footprint that says,

05:12Hey, I came from way down deeper.

05:15And when we say deep, we mean core-mantle-boundary-deep,

05:19the layer where Earth's molten metal core meets the rock above it.

05:23Basically, it's the basement no one thought you could access.

05:27The basement where we assume that gold is hiding.

05:30So how do these rocks get from the core all the way up to Hawaii?

05:35Vacation!

05:36Well, no.

05:37Actually, it all comes down to something called a mantle plume.

05:41We know that the lower part of Earth, near the core, is insanely hot.

05:46Every now and then, a big, superheated blob of rock starts rising through the mantle.

05:51Slowly.

05:52Like, really slowly.

05:54We're talking a few inches per year.

05:56But over millions of years, that adds up.

06:00This rising column of hot rock is the mantle plume.

06:04It doesn't blast upward like a volcano.

06:07It slowly rises and carries material from deep, deep inside the Earth.

06:11That includes elements and chemical fingerprints from the core-mantle-boundary.

06:16However, here's the cool part.

06:18When that plume finally reaches the surface,

06:21it punches through the crust and creates a volcanic hot spot.

06:24That's what happened in Hawaii.

06:27The islands were literally built by this deep-earth plumbing system.

06:32The lava that erupts there isn't just melted surface rock.

06:36It's a blend of material that's been on a journey from thousands of miles below.

06:40But I can hear your thoughts now.

06:43Wait, what about gold?

06:45Well, sadly, we're not talking about gold bars coming from a volcano.

06:50What's actually leaking is tiny atomic-level traces of metals like ruthenium.

06:56However, where there's ruthenium, there's a good chance gold is tagging along.

07:01Remember when we said that gold is a siderophile, meaning that it really likes iron?

07:06Well, the ruthenium has the same property.

07:10It's an iron-loving element, which means it tends to bond with iron

07:13and sink to the core during planet formation.

07:17So if ruthenium from the core is managing to ride up to the surface through mantle plumes,

07:23it strongly suggests that gold and other similar heavy metals could be doing the same.

07:29In other words, scientists are using ruthenium as a chemical trail marker

07:33because it's easier to detect and analyze.

07:36Meaning that gold might be there too,

07:39just in amounts too small to measure with current instruments.

07:43This discovery suggests that all the siderophile elements are leaking out of the core.

07:49But this opens an opportunity to ask,

07:52has this happened before?

07:54And if so, what could it mean?

07:56Well, maybe Earth's core has been leaking metals all along,

08:00and we just never noticed.

08:01The truth is, we're still just scratching the surface, or in this case, the core.

08:08For all we know, this kind of deep Earth leak has been going on for millions,

08:13maybe even billions of years.

08:15But until now, we haven't had the tools to notice.

08:18The technology that scientists use to spot ruthenium-100 is brand new.

08:24It has only recently become precise enough to pick up these tiny chemical hints.

08:29So this might be the very first time we've caught Earth's core doing this.

08:34And if that's true, it's kind of a big deal.

08:38Because it means the inside of our planet isn't sealed off in silent.

08:42And it might still be shaping the surface in ways we never imagined.

08:47Not with explosions and earthquakes,

08:50but with slow, steady, atomic-scale signals rising through the rock,

08:55we're only just beginning to detect these signals.

08:58And if rare metals are making that journey upward,

09:02there's a lot more happening deep inside Earth than we thought.

09:05This isn't just a one-time discovery.

09:08It could be the start of a whole new way of understanding our planet.

09:13Cool, huh?

09:16That's it for today.

09:17So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,

09:19then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

09:22Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!

Earth’s Core Is Leaking Gold - And It’s Rising Up!

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