Getting up close and personal with beach gold

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-04-05 03:00

New Zealand

Photo: Dave Craw

South Island beaches are home to tiny flecks of precious metal, mostly overlooked during New Zealand's gold rush years. Researchers have taken electron microscope pictures of the miniscule metals, producing the first comprehensive set of images of beach gold published anywhere in the world. The evidence suggests that in one Southland site, there particles as small as 10 micrometers wide - that's only a fifth the width of a human hair.

Expert Reaction

These comments have been collated by the Science Media Centre to provide a variety of expert perspectives on this issue. Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. Views expressed are the personal opinions of the experts named. They do not represent the views of the SMC or any other organisation unless specifically stated.

Emeritus Professor Dave Craw, Geology department, University of Otago; and author of this research:

The point of the study was to look at this horribly fine-grained stuff that nearly everyone ignores at the beaches around the South Island. There has been some mining (West Coast) but saving the fine gold is really hard for the miners. And it is unlikely that people will see any. Even with a gold pan, the fine gold floats on the surface tension of water and a lot of it is lost.

Last updated: 01 Apr 2025 11:26am

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Declared conflicts of interest Dave Craw is the author of this study.

Journal/
conference: New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Otago

Funder: University of Otago

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