YAKUT GOLD BELTS
Once, according to an old legend
a rare beauty Fire-bird had been
flying over the Sakha-Yakutia country
and dropped her gold feathers which
turned into the belts of alluvial and
ore deposits of precious metal.
Some years ago the scientists of
the Yakut Institute of
Geological Sciences were given an opportunity to study the collection of
gold nuggets extracted at the enterprises of the joint-stock company "Yakut
Gold", the total weight of which was 32 kg. According to the results
of this investigation, using large accumulated information in the Institute,
the monograph "Gold Nuggets of Yakutia. Verkhne-indigirsky Region"
(Novosibirsk, "Nauka", 1992) was published. The works about Kularsky
and Allakh-Yunsky gold ore regions of Eastern Yakutia are ready for publishing
now. Nowadays, the world largest number of gold nuggets is extracted in
Yakutia. The fact is that in other gold-bearing provinces of the Earth
more than 90 % of gold is extracted from ores of primary deposits, where
the smallest native pieces of gold bigger than 1-2 mm are very seldom found
and the finds of nuggets are an exception to the rule. On the contrary,
in Yakutia the main number of gold gives alluvial deposits, where the nuggets
are met more often. The value of some nuggets, as a unique phenomenon of
nature is essentially higher than the cost of the precious metal including
in them, due to their structure, components and origin. It will be soon
when those nuggets, which have no national property, will be sold at special
auctions, attracting museums' attention, private collectors of minerals
and simply well-to-do men from different countries, who want to keep their
capitals and to have a unique nugget at their own disposal.
The first Russian gold was smelted out from "golden
silver" - silver ores with impurities of gold.Native (ore) gold was
discovered in the Urals in 1747. In a year in 1748 Afanasy Metenev a berg-geschworen
(geologist-searcher) of Mining Department, had found the smallest gold
pieces in "reddish shkwartz" which are the signs of a gold-bearing
ore. It had happened in Yakutia at the foot of a hill on the bank of the
Òóãà river (Aldan river basin). Now the world
well-known Nezhdaninskoye deposit is situated here.For a long time many
geologists have been searching for this historical Metenev's "golden
hill". It has been found only in more than 200 years by a research
worker of the Yakut Institute of Geological Sciences V.A. Amuzinsky.
Verkhojansky source of Russian gold river Afanasy Metenev's drawing, discovered
in Sverdlovsk regional archives.
The
biggest Yakut nugget Tuora-Tas stream,
Verkhne-indigirsky region.
Total weight - 9609 g, pure gold weight - 7747 g.
Dimensions - 19.2x15.3x9.0 cm.
Hurrying
for gold, a man spent little time and means to know its properties",
- academic Vernadsky V.I. wrote 70 years ago. During thousand years the
great mass of metal had been obtaining from gold-bearing placers, their
search aroused no difficulties and required no special knowledge. Now,
when the search of new deposits becomes more difficult it is necessary
to understand all the details of metal accumulation in ores and alluvial
deposits. Gold researches are inten- sified all over the world.
The staff members of the Yakut Institute of Geological Sciences of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences are studying the structure, composition, properties of gold nuggets using the modern precision methods and original installations. For example, microprobing X-ray spectral analysis is widely used and allows to define the content of basic components (gold, silver, mercury and others) in the smallest gold pieces beginning with 3-5 microns. During spectral quantitative analysis the concentration of 15 element-admix- tures is investigated in a piece of a gold nugget weighing 4-5 mg. The behaviour of the smallest gold pieces during alluvial, deluvial, eolian and other geological processes is modelled in experimental installations; geochemistry of gold at high temperature and pressure variations is studied using mathematical models.
Large
gold accumulations - nuggets -always attracted attention of investigators
in collection with mysterious conditions of creation, but they were not
often available for scintists. More often they went at once for smelt.
Only legends, wordy descriptions, drawings had remained and rarely - photos,separate
analyses. In recent years the detailed research of the collection of the
gold nuggets mined at the enterprises of the joint-stock company "Yakut
Gold" has been fulfilled in the Yakut Institute of Geological Scinces.
The gallery of invidual portraits is before
you . There are more 30 nuggets in this collection.
