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Properties and Uses of Gold That Make It Worth Mining

Gold has been a part of every known human culture. The Inca civilization called it "Tears of the Sun." Homer mentioned gold in his writing, calling it the glory of immortals and a symbol of wealth among humans. Gold's brilliant, natural beauty and high luster, in addition to it's malleability, make it a fine medium for jewelry artists and currency mints. More recently, gold has become an important raw material for the technology and health care industries.

Jewelry
- Gold is used for significant ornamental objects like wedding rings, medals, awards and religious jewelry.
  
  For more than 6,000 years, humans have been using gold to create ornamental objects like jewelry. Today, about 78 percent of gold consumed every year is used to create jewelry. Gold jewelry sold at regular retail price has been marked up as much as 400 percent of the original gold value. This makes a successful gold mining operation valuable not only to it's shareholders, but to the industry "middlemen" of artisans, wholesalers and retailers.
Financial Uses
- Golds properties of purity and malleability make it ideal for minting coins and bullion.
  
  The first known use of gold for a financial transaction also occurred around 6,000 years ago. Gold is an excellent financial tool because it holds value so well. Gold is rare, durable, portable, malleable and divided easily. Gold bullion (gold bars) and gold coins are popular investment items for both individuals and national banks.
Technology
- Gold is used to manufacture cell phones because it is a fast, failsafe conductor.
  
  An important modern use for gold is electronics manufacturing. Gold is used in may components of computers because it is a reliable and highly efficient conductor. For manufacturing technology like computers and cellular phones, gold is the perfect metal because these items require metal that can rapidly transmit digital information. While gold is relatively expensive, it's reliability and speed of data transmission is unsurpassed by any other metal, making it the number one conductive metal choice in the industry. According to the World Gold Council, gold is also used in other industries such as biomedical, dental, environmental, fuel cells, nanotechnology, photography and aerospace.
Medical Uses
- Gold is used to treat some medical conditions. To treat certain cancers, small particles of radioactive gold are implanted in cancerous tissues. "Gold therapy" is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Solutions including salts and gold, such as sodium aurothiomalate, are injected by doctors to treat both adult and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Lagophthalmos, a condition where an individual cannot fully close their eyes, is treated with small gold implants in the upper eyelid. The gold implants act like weights, and help patients close their eyes fully. Gold is also used in many surgical items and life support devices. Since gold is so reliable in electronic equipment as a conductor, it is an ideal metal for life-support devices.
Properties of Gold
- Gold, or Au, on the periodic table of elements, has an atomic number of 79. Gold can be combined with other metals to create stronger alloys, perfect for jewelry. In larger quantities gold appears yellow, but it can be alloyed for color changes as well. Gold is unaffected by air and most reagents (meaning it does not tarnish). As previously stated, it is a good conductor of electricity, and also of heat.

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