Key Concepts

Come Prepared

Teaching in the Exhibition

Be an Exhibition Explorer

Map of the Exhibition

Back in the Classroom

Gold in Many Forms

Mixing Metals

Connections to Other Museum Halls

Glossary & Reference Lists

Standards Correlations

Credits

Gold in Many Forms

Gold's smallest building block is a microscopic cube-shaped crystal. The distinct symmetry of a gold crystal results from the way gold atoms organize themselves.

Gold crystals build upon each other during deposition. The space available in the Earth determines the appearance of the resulting specimen. Only rarely can gold crystals freely aggregate into well-developed, visibly crystalline shapes. More often they aggregate imperfectly, in cramped spaces, resulting in a variety of forms: chunky nuggets, wiry branches, undulating ribbons, and so on.

(click to enlarge) ©AMNH/Craig Chesek		(click to enlarge) ©AMNH/Craig Chesek		(click to enlarge) ©AMNH/Craig Chesek
Nuggets are lumps of natural gold, often eroded to smoothness.		Although all gold is made of individual crystals, aggregates with a clearly visible geometry are often dubbed crystallized.		Gold veins are deposits that form in fractures in the Earth.
(click to enlarge) ©AMNH/Craig Chesek		(click to enlarge) ©AMNH/James Webster
Gold grains and flakes erode from veins and other deposits.		Ores can contain microscopic particles of gold, each made of one or more gold crystals.