Cosmic Alchemy

The New South Wales gold rush began more than 400 million years ago.

It was an age of fire, that ended with ice. Australia was part of the super-continent Gondwana, which was not yet south. By continent standards it was moving fast. By the end of this era, the Ordovician, it would be at the south pole.

In the water there were snails, trilobites, corals and some ‘primitive’ fish. On the land, some little bug type fellas with exoskeletons were starting to colonise Gondwana, which was otherwise empty of critters.

Volcanoes ruled a section of Gondwana that mining companies now refer lustfully (or covetously) as the LFB, the Lachlan Fold Belt. Deep in the earth, gold was already there. Hot magma rose upwards towards the surface, releasing fluids as it went. Amidst these fluids was liquid gold. Gold poured onto the surface of Gondwana, producing substantial reefs of golden metal due to volcanic ‘intrusions’ and also thin streaks through the granite. Then there was the Devonian , which was the Age of the Fishes, because fish came to be on top of the earth’s food chain (if one can have a favourite geological era this is mine). In this era, some of this gold was disrupted by more geological activity, so that gold was enfolded in quartz. This was the gold that diggers began to extract by the rivers in Ophir and Hill End in 1851.

What are we to make of this gold? Perhaps it was waiting patiently under the earth for its purpose to be fulfilled, when finally, the combinations of the end of the Napoleonic Wars, new British banking legislation, imperial expansion, steam ships and settler colonial confidence let thousands of people to take the three-week trip from Sydney to Bathurst and the eight hour journey to extract the gold.

Which is to say, was it always gold, not in terms of composition ot substance, but potential? Was the ‘gold’ sought by diggers and the bankers who bought it from them, embodied in what the magma deposited? Or did the diggers bring gold – the idea of gold – with them? And was it that idea which was infused with the historical moment, the confluence of a specie shortage, the disciplining of bank money and increased global mobility – so much for those diggers to carry! – that made gold, gold?

This is clearly important. Check out the price of gold over one hundred years (source: https://www.macrotrends.net/).

There was the gold standard and dollar-gold convertibility until 1969. Then, the moment that gold wasn’t important (in one way of thinking about it), the price goes nuts. And it goes nuts, as we have just seen, because of lots of ideas about gold: a safe haven when other currencies look dodgy, an opportunity for short-term gains in the process etc.

The relationship between the idea and the price is obvious.

But it is not just the idea of gold, is it? The point of it being gold is that it is actually, materially gold. Of course other metals are also important, but even in bimetallic systems of currency, while you can exchange their value like we do types of currency, you can’t actually substitute silver or cooper or anything else for gold. It actually has to be gold.

No wonder we have so many stories of people able to turn something that isn’t gold, into gold. This was the ancient science/philosophy (when those two were pretty much the same thing) of alchemy – or, at least, a sub-branch of alchemy called chrysopoeia, which distinguishes the gold-making branch from spiritual uplift/elixir of life type branches (though some scholars point out that these were in fact entangled).

It was also the gift/curse of Midas in Greek mythology, whose touch turned everything to gold. And then there is Rumpelstiltskin, who could spin straw into gold.

Of course, all such things are mythical. Gold cannot be magicked into being. There are a few cases of sciencing it into being, but in at least one case it was radioactive. That would probably impact its price, I reckon.

What about 400 million years ago? Did the Ordovician volcano perform primodial alchemy?

Turns out, no. The gold was already there.

Recently, astrophysicists have been able to prove that gold is created when stars collide.

I mean this seems like fucking nonsense, doesn’t it? But seriously. Here is how you make gold.

First you need not just one dead star, but two. Getting hold of two dead stars is quite difficult, but I reckon with some perseverance we can make it work.

Specifically they have to be ‘neutron stars’, which sounds like a star wearing a Superman cape, but is just the ultra-dense remnants left over when a star dies.

Then you need the two stars to collide. Not just line up in the sky when you’re looking at them – we’re making GOLD here, not the zodiac.

It is tricky to do, but the payoff is great. One 2017 collision produced 3 and 13 earth-masses of gold (that’s a pretty wide margin of error, but obv the low end is fine).

How do we get it to earth though? Well this is the really tricky bit. The gold that the Ordovician volcano reached down and extracted from the earth’s core and deposited on the LFB. Well, it was in the dust that coalesced to form the earth itself. When the earth was made of molten stuff, the gold sank deep into the core. Bits of gold dust have sometimes fallen from space, but most of it was produced by the cosmic alchemy and then helped form the earth itself.

Suddenly, today’s price ($4,650.80 USD an ounce) seems a bit of a bargain.

This post is part of my CH Currey Memorial Fellowship at the State Library of NSW on ‘What happened to the gold’?