There are more than a hundred volcanoes in Antarctica, but only a dozen remain active. Among them is Mount Erebus, the largest volcano on the frozen continent, known for a curious characteristic: expelling gold.
According to IFL Science, this volcano, which It is located on Ross Island, near South America, it has an elevation of 3,794 meters and it is the southernmost of the entire planet.
Was Discovered in 1841 by explorer Sir James Clark Ross, who noticed it because it was active and constantly passing gas. Experts have recorded highest activity since 1972when it started to “bubble”.
Mount Erebus is most likely remembered for the disaster that occurred on November 28, 1979, when A New Zealand plane collided head-on with the volcano.
This is Air New Zealand flight 901, a tourist trip that took passengers to fly over Antarctica. In the accident, 227 passengers, 30 crew members died, and 44 people remained unidentifiedaccording to BBC News.
However, now the volcano is being studied for its extraordinary ability to expel gold, which keeps scientists uncertain.
Why does Mount Erebus expel gold?
NASA’s explanation is that “The volcano sits on a thin patch of crust, so molten rock rises more easily from the Earth’s interior.. It periodically emits columns of gas and steam and occasionally spits out rocks (bombs) in Strombolian eruptions.”
Let us remember that all volcanoes can expel minerals from the interior of the Earth, but the curious thing is that gas bursts from Mount Erebus expel small crystals of metallic gold.
The latter makes Mount Erebus special because, Although there are other volcanoes on Earth that expel gold and other minerals, this would be the only one that expels gold in a metallic state..
According to the media, these tiny crystals do not exceed 20 micrometers, which are thousandths of millimeters, but daily I would be expelling 80 grams in total, which would be equivalent to about 6,000 dollars, close to 6 million Chilean pesos in gold.
Although collecting these “nuggets” would be impossible. A study published in the 90’s described that the gold dust would be traveling throughout the mountain area and even further.
“Although the flux of Au (gold) emitted is low compared to other volcanoes, crystalline Au particles have been found in the plume near the crater, in the ambient air up to 1,000 kilometers from the volcano and in samples close to the surface,” the scientists point out.
