Scientists have discovered exactly how earthquakes trigger quartz into forming large gold nuggets — finally solving a mystery that's puzzled researchers for decades. "Gold forms in quartz all the time ...

Christopher Voisey receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia. Humanity’s fascination with gold stretches back thousands of years.

Gold has always been a hot commodity. But these days, finding a nugget isn’t too tricky: Much of the world’s gold is mined from natural veins of quartz, a glassy mineral that streaks through large ...

When strained by earthquakes, underground networks of quartz veins can generate enough voltage to snatch gold from passing fluids, researchers report September 2 in Nature Geoscience. The findings ...

Gold nuggets have long fascinated treasure hunters and geologists alike, often found gleaming within quartz veins deep underground. Yet the exact process behind the formation of these ...

Solid gold bars stacked in bank vaults, plating on the summer’s Olympic medals, or even your own pieces of gold jewelry could owe their existence to earthquakes. The stress and strain produced by ...