"Eureka! I have found it!" With those words the vast, newly-expanded America was built. As miners rushed to find the precious metal that meant fortune, America became a world power in economic strength. Gold has always been sought after for its malleability and deep yellow shine, which makes it easily crafted into gold jewelry, gold rings, Gold Pendants, and other items that represent wealth and power.
Before 1971, America's monetary standard was based on Gold Pendants. Since that time, and with current global economic difficulties, gold has become a sure thing to invest in. Just prior to 9/11, the price of gold was $271 an ounce. In March 2008, it had risen to $1,023 an ounce. Whereas gold was considered mostly for gold jewelry and extravagant uses, now it is more for investing-if you have the cash to buy it.
The demand for Gold Pendants has exceeded production by 59%, and worse yet, there is a diminishing, limited supply. All the rings, finery, crowns, and gold Gold Pendants ever produced in history, and all the gold bars saved in vaults all over the world, have produced only about 161,000 tons of gold. That would barely fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools. Gone are the days when a gold miner could walk along a stream bed and pick up nuggets or chip at a vein of gold in a mine wall and fill a cart with gold-rich rocks.
Gold Pendants is now profitable only when huge mining companies with enormous equipment and state-of-the-art methods extract the coveted element from the earth. These companies must go further into inaccessible areas of the globe to find it, often risking pristine environments and upsetting delicate ecologies.
For those smitten by gold fever, life has never been easy. Californian and Alaskan gold miners worked long hours in difficult conditions and few comforts to dream of finding the mother lode or the giant nugget that would bring instant fortune. Today in remote corners of the world, miners fare in conditions that even our forefathers would have given up on.
At 17,000 feet high in the mountains of Peru, miners descend into a tunnel under a glacier to work 30 days in grueling conditions for no pay, except on the 31st day. Then they may load as many rocks into a sack as they can carry and ascend out of the tunnel to see if their cache of rocks contains a small fortune in gold, or none at all. If they're lucky, they then risk mercury poisoning to extract the gold from the rocks.
Other open pit mines operated by large scale mining companies create such huge scars in the earth that they can be seen from space. The amount of gold that is extracted from these massive pits is so minute that often 200 pieces of gold dust could fit on the head of a pin. In Indonesia, for instance, 250 tons of rock and ore are extracted to obtain enough gold for a wedding ring. And where does all that waste rock go? It is spread out over the pristine rainforest or dumped into a canyon 10,000 feet beneath the sea. Even so, the Newmont mining company employs 8,000 Indonesians, and their lifestyles now look like any American suburban neighborhood.
Many jewelry manufacturers now refuse to buy Gold Pendants from companies that show disregard for environmental and social destruction, but gold will continue to reign as the most precious and coveted element on the earth.
Before 1971, America's monetary standard was based on Gold Pendants. Since that time, and with current global economic difficulties, gold has become a sure thing to invest in. Just prior to 9/11, the price of gold was $271 an ounce. In March 2008, it had risen to $1,023 an ounce. Whereas gold was considered mostly for gold jewelry and extravagant uses, now it is more for investing-if you have the cash to buy it.The demand for Gold Pendants has exceeded production by 59%, and worse yet, there is a diminishing, limited supply. All the rings, finery, crowns, and gold Gold Pendants ever produced in history, and all the gold bars saved in vaults all over the world, have produced only about 161,000 tons of gold. That would barely fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools. Gone are the days when a gold miner could walk along a stream bed and pick up nuggets or chip at a vein of gold in a mine wall and fill a cart with gold-rich rocks.
Gold Pendants is now profitable only when huge mining companies with enormous equipment and state-of-the-art methods extract the coveted element from the earth. These companies must go further into inaccessible areas of the globe to find it, often risking pristine environments and upsetting delicate ecologies.
For those smitten by gold fever, life has never been easy. Californian and Alaskan gold miners worked long hours in difficult conditions and few comforts to dream of finding the mother lode or the giant nugget that would bring instant fortune. Today in remote corners of the world, miners fare in conditions that even our forefathers would have given up on.
At 17,000 feet high in the mountains of Peru, miners descend into a tunnel under a glacier to work 30 days in grueling conditions for no pay, except on the 31st day. Then they may load as many rocks into a sack as they can carry and ascend out of the tunnel to see if their cache of rocks contains a small fortune in gold, or none at all. If they're lucky, they then risk mercury poisoning to extract the gold from the rocks.
Other open pit mines operated by large scale mining companies create such huge scars in the earth that they can be seen from space. The amount of gold that is extracted from these massive pits is so minute that often 200 pieces of gold dust could fit on the head of a pin. In Indonesia, for instance, 250 tons of rock and ore are extracted to obtain enough gold for a wedding ring. And where does all that waste rock go? It is spread out over the pristine rainforest or dumped into a canyon 10,000 feet beneath the sea. Even so, the Newmont mining company employs 8,000 Indonesians, and their lifestyles now look like any American suburban neighborhood.
Many jewelry manufacturers now refuse to buy Gold Pendants from companies that show disregard for environmental and social destruction, but gold will continue to reign as the most precious and coveted element on the earth.
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