The Ocean Holds an Estimated 20 Million Tons of Gold
The oceans contain an estimated 20 million tons of gold, but it is so spread out that extracting it profitably is not currently practical.
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There really is gold dissolved throughout the oceans, but the surprising part is how incredibly spread out it is. A commonly cited estimate puts the total at around 20 million metric tons, while NOAA notes that the exact amount is difficult to determine. The concentration is only on the order of parts per trillion, with some estimates putting the average at roughly 13 billionths of a gram per liter of seawater. That means the ocean can contain an enormous total amount of gold without containing much gold in any particular bucket of water. There are also gold deposits on the seafloor, but those can be buried deep underwater and locked inside rock. The basic problem is economics: recovering tiny traces of gold requires processing enormous amounts of seawater, and current methods do not make the recovered metal worth the cost. People have been trying to solve this problem for more than a century. Historical attempts included elaborate extraction schemes and even fraudulent ventures, showing how tempting the idea of an ocean full of valuable metal has been. For now, the ocean contains a huge estimated store of gold, but it is better understood as a vast, extremely dilute resource than as an easily mineable treasure chest.
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