Friday, 13th October 2006 (4838 views)

Gold reserves in Papua New Guinea might have been created in a relatively short space of time, geologically speaking, research has found.

The Ladolam deposit at Lihir Island in the Pacific island country houses around 1,300 tons of gold according to estimates made by a research team led by Professor Stuart Simmons of the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

The researchers believe that gold is deposited at a rate of 50 pounds per year and so they estimate the world's only known hydrothermal gold deposit at Ladolam to have been built up within a period of 55,000 years.

Gold deposits at the Ladolam site occur when water cools from 480 degrees to around 300 degrees, it was found.

Professor Simmons remarked: "One important conclusion is the period of time to form this deposit - only 55,000 years. This is an incredibly short time in geological terms - for example, diamonds take over 100 million years to form."

He also hailed the research undertaken at the site as vital in discovering exactly how gold deposits come about in hydrothermal areas.

 

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