Page 177 - (DK) I Can’t Believe It! 2

IT CAN’T BE TRUE! 175

The ball may look like a lot
of gold, but this is all the gold FAST FACTS
that has ever been mined
anywhere on Earth, since the Percentage of metals
beginning of history. Every in Earth’s crust
day, the world produces
enough iron to make
more than 40 iron 0.0000004%
balls the same size! Aluminum 8.1% Iron 5% Gold

Gold is much rarer than iron or
aluminum, which make up large
percentages of the Earth’s crust.
Gold is valuable because it is so
rare, but also because it never
rusts or tarnishes.

We have already
mined about
Gold left in 80 percent of the
the ground
world’s recoverable
gold. Only 51,000
tons (46,000
metric tons) of
the gold left in
All the Mined the ground could
Gold
world’s be extracted with
mined gold existing technology.
would make
a solid ball
78 ft 9 in (24 m)
across.

Trawler
56 ft (17 m)

Gold bar
66 ft (20 m)
Seawater contains dissolved
gold. There may be up to 16,500
tons (15,000 metric tons) of it in
the world’s oceans. If this gold
could be extracted, it would make
a bar measuring 66 ft x 33 ft x
13 ft (20 m x 10 m x 4 m).

US_174_175_309600_ICBT_Gold.indd 175 19/12/17 2:37 pm