Geologists Find the Largest Gold Deposit in History

Bright Side

Geologists just uncovered what could be the largest gold deposit ever found — and it’s massive. We’re talking about gold hidden so deep, it rewrites mining history. The discovery stunned scientists who weren’t even looking for this much metal. It could reshape global markets and entire economies. And yes… this might change who controls the world’s gold next.  Animation is created by Bright Side.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV  Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Our Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00Do you know how much gold has been mined by humans throughout history?

00:04About 216,000 tons.

00:07And two-thirds of this amount was mined after the 1950s.

00:11Different countries, different times, thousands of different people involved.

00:16But what if you found huge deposits of gold in one place?

00:20What if a giant gold ore deposit was discovered?

00:23No, not just giant, but supergiant.

00:26This is exactly what was found in China.

00:31A group of geologists discovered about 40 gold veins with about 330 tons of gold ore.

00:38But that's not all.

00:403D modeling has shown that even more gold lies underneath.

00:44At a depth of about 9,800 feet, there may be several hundred more tons.

00:49In short, there is a chance that they will discover deposits with about 1,100 tons of gold.

00:55Can you imagine how much that is?

00:58If not, that's about $83 billion.

01:02Wow!

01:04Experts say that this deposit contains approximately 4.9 ounces per ton of ore.

01:10It seems that this is negligible, but in fact, it's a high indicator in gold mining.

01:16Usually, 0.35 ounces per ton is awesome.

01:19If all calculations turn out to be correct, it will be the largest gold mine in the world,

01:25even bigger than the South Deep Mine located in South Africa, with its 1,025 tons of gold.

01:33Everyone is worried.

01:34Everyone is happy.

01:35Gold, gold, gold on their minds.

01:38Everyone wants gold.

01:39Everyone buys gold.

01:40Gold is rising in price.

01:42Gold is more reliable than Bitcoin and cash.

01:45Gold is associated with wealth and luxury.

01:49Gold is always a valuable and profitable investment.

01:53But hold up.

01:54Why is it so?

01:55Why do people go crazy over some shiny metal?

01:59The fact is that gold has both practical and psychological value.

02:05For centuries, gold has represented power, prestige, and wealth in different cultures.

02:11It seems we're born in a genetic memory that gold is valuable.

02:16Think of how many problems gold has brought to literary heroes and how many gold-related adventures we've seen in movies.

02:23Gold makes people happy and greedy, cruel and intimidated.

02:27That's why so many people love it.

02:30Yes, it glitters.

02:32It's beautiful.

02:33But it's also practical.

02:35Gold doesn't rust.

02:36It doesn't corrode.

02:37It can be stored for a long time, and it doesn't deteriorate.

02:42It's literally a reliable investment.

02:44All other savings may lose value because of crises.

02:48But gold remains unchanged.

02:51The only problem?

02:52It can get stolen.

02:53In addition to jewelry making, gold is used in electronics, medicine, aerospace, and many other industries.

03:01Bitcoin has a value because of the public support of people around the world.

03:05Money has value thanks to the support of authorities.

03:09Gold has value on its own.

03:12It's tangible and visually appealing.

03:15And its worth is also supported by people's centuries-old belief in its enduring value.

03:20But never let gold cloud your mind.

03:23Many people lose their honor and even their minds over it.

03:27Avoid this trap.

03:28It's just a shiny piece of metal.

03:30There are other precious metals in the periodic table.

03:34Palladium, silver, copper, platinum.

03:37Why is gold number one?

03:39Cheaper metals such as copper, iron, lead, and aluminum corrode in rust.

03:44Aluminum is also not durable.

03:47Platinum and palladium are more expensive than gold.

03:50But they're too rare and difficult to mine.

03:53You won't make many coins out of them.

03:55Silver is softer than gold.

03:57It tarnishes, scratches, and deforms.

04:00And, well, to be honest, gold is more beautiful.

04:04But there is another reason why gold is so expensive.

04:08It's quite difficult to get.

04:10Gold mining is a very laborious and long process.

04:14In movies or documentaries, you might have seen people standing at the mouth of a river,

04:19collecting silt and clay, sifting it through gauze and small nets,

04:23and finding gold particles there.

04:25That's one of the methods for how gold is mined.

04:28You have to work hard to get just a few small pieces.

04:33How do they find gold?

04:35It used to be luck.

04:36Someone was walking along the shore and saw something glistening in the water.

04:40But today, gold detection methods are much more effective.

04:43Geologists know that gold is present in almost all rocks and soil,

04:49but its particles are so tiny that they're not visible.

04:52But when the concentration of gold is high and noticeable, work begins to extract it.

04:58Special geological teams are engaged in searching for these sites.

05:02When they discover gold, they drill wells, then take soil samples,

05:07and decide if there's enough metal to carry out large-scale mining.

05:11Production depends on the deposit.

05:13If gold is in hard rock, miners drill holes, place dynamite, and detonate it.

05:19The explosion breaks the rock into pieces so they can extract the gold.

05:23But this is just the beginning of the work.

05:25After collecting large pieces of rock,

05:28workers take them to factories to extract valuable material.

05:32At the first stage, specialists break large pieces of rock into smaller ones.

05:37Using crushing machines, they grind the ore into tiny pieces, similar to gravel.

05:42This gravel then enters rotating drums filled with steel balls.

05:46The drums spin, and the balls grind the gravel into powder under pressure.

05:50This mass is then mixed with water and passes through special filters.

05:55After that, gold is extracted from the ore using chemical solvents and complex purification systems.

06:02It adheres to carbon, then is separated from it,

06:05followed by several additional processes, including electrolysis and further purification.

06:11At the end, the gold is melted and separated from impurities,

06:15then poured into ingots and sent to other plants for further processing.

06:20Yes, it's a difficult and time-consuming process, and quite a long one.

06:25And it's not always profitable.

06:28You can find a deposit of precious metal, but it will be too expensive to extract it.

06:33And the amount of gold there won't be enough to make the effort worthwhile.

06:37Only 10% of the world's gold deposits contain enough precious material

06:42to pay back for its extraction and processing.

06:45There are many areas filled with gold.

06:47Do you know how many of them are suitable for productive mining?

06:51Less than 0.1%.

06:53So this is probably another reason why gold is so valuable.

06:59But is there any other material that causes a lot of excitement?

07:02Oh yes, this material is called liquid gold.

07:07And this is helium.

07:10That's the gas used to inflate balloons.

07:13But this is not its main value.

07:15Helium is capable of reaching ultra-low temperatures,

07:18is superconducting, and is lightweight.

07:21Helium is used in medicine for diagnostics.

07:24For example, for magnetic resonance imaging.

07:27Helium cools nuclear reactors and maintains rocket fuel temperatures during launch.

07:32Divers breathe a mixture of helium and oxygen during deep dives

07:36to avoid diseases associated with pressure changes.

07:40Helium is crucial for the modern world.

07:43Another precious material is graphene.

07:46It's not just one of the most durable materials in the world.

07:49It's a highly conductive material.

07:52Heat and electricity pass through graphene easily,

07:55which makes it very promising for the development of...

07:58What?

07:59Considering that graphene is also flexible,

08:02water repellent, non-toxic, and has antibacterial properties,

08:06it's suitable for developing everything.

08:10Medical equipment, mechanical engineering, electronics,

08:13construction, logistics, energy conservation,

08:16space and underwater industries, and much more.

08:19Scientists believe that graphene has the potential to enable revolutionary new technologies

08:25that could change the lives of all people.

08:28Something similar happened with silicon,

08:30which is actively used to create semiconductors and rechargeable batteries.

08:34It's possible that without silicon,

08:36we wouldn't have smartphones, laptops, and other electronic devices.

08:41Graphene may also lead to a new technological leap.

08:44When the world switches to renewable sources of energy and uses electric transport,

08:50graphene can become technological gold.

08:53During tests, graphene batteries have shown that they charge more than 70 times faster than regular ones

08:59and last three times longer.

09:00At the same time, they're cheaper and environmentally friendly.

09:05Okay, that sounds cool.

09:06But where do we get this graphene?

09:08It's obtained from graphite, which lies in the bowels of the Earth.

09:12One of the largest graphite deposits is located in South Australia.

09:18200 million tons of high-quality graphite.

09:22It sounds like it could be enough for the entire planet.

09:26Once upon a time, I searched through the jungle,

09:29following a map poorly drawn on a piece of cloth.

09:33After days of walking, I reached an ancient Mayan temple.

09:37As soon as I stepped in, a strange noise echoed.

09:40I turned to leave, but suddenly, the floor cracked beneath my feet.

09:45I fell into a 1,600-year-old tomb.

09:48Finally, I got lucky.

09:50That day, I walked out with shiny jades, carved seashells, a creepy afterlife mask,

09:56and a curse that's been haunting me ever since.

09:59Well, okay, maybe it didn't happen exactly like that.

10:03Or maybe it didn't happen to me.

10:05Sadly, real-life archaeology is not like Indiana Jones movies.

10:09However, the findings can be as exciting and important.

10:14Especially in Belize, where archaeologists just found the first identifiable ruler's tomb

10:20in the lost Mayan city of Caracol, after 40 years of digging.

10:24A team of archaeologists finally unsealed a hidden chamber,

10:28buried deep beneath a structure they'd already studied.

10:31And inside that tomb, which is indeed around 1,600 years old,

10:35was Tecab Shach, the first known king of Caracol.

10:39His name is commonly interpreted as tree-branch rain deity,

10:44which is poetic and incredibly awesome.

10:46King Shach was believed to be a Mayan deity,

10:49in control of rain, thunder, and lightning.

10:52According to folklore, he used axes to strike rain-bearing snakes in the sky to make the rain fall.

10:58The buried king is considered to be the dynasty founder.

11:02The royal dynasty he founded lasted more than 460 years.

11:07And judging by what was buried with him,

11:09we can assume that King Shach was greatly celebrated.

11:13His tomb had jade beads, carved bones, seashell jewelry, and ritual pottery vessels.

11:19One of those vessels shows Ek Chua, the Maya deity of trade, receiving offerings.

11:24Others showed bound prisoners.

11:27Archaeologists could tell they had found some high royalty

11:30when they noticed a considerable presence of red cinnabar in the tomb,

11:34a rare and expensive material from the Mayan world.

11:38Then there's a jade mosaic mask,

11:41pieced together like a puzzle to cover the king's face in brilliant green.

11:45Jade wasn't used just because it was shiny.

11:48It was sacred and symbolically associated with life and demise.

11:52Polished jade glistens like it's been dipped in water.

11:56Cool at first, but quickly warming in your hand.

11:59To the ancient Maya, this lifelike quality made jade a living, breathing substance.

12:05And for this reason, it possessed high religious and spiritual importance.

12:10The Maya associated it with the breath of life, with royalty, and with eternity.

12:15Covering someone's face in jade showed just how high-ranking that person was.

12:20King Schock's mask has yet to be examined properly,

12:23but another famous mask, of King Pakal, was made of over 346 green jade stone fragments.

12:30That's a lot of painstaking work.

12:33But maybe the most symbolically fascinating thing about this king was that he was old.

12:39Not just lived a good life old.

12:41Toothless old.

12:42To us, that means he didn't clean his teeth properly.

12:46Because, no, you don't usually lose teeth just from getting old,

12:50as long as you maintain good oral hygiene and dental care.

12:53On the other hand, according to Maya legends,

12:56toothless elders were believed to have spiritual powers.

13:00Rulers and shamans mediated between realms,

13:03and aged or underworld deities were often shown as toothless in art.

13:07Now, speaking of realms, Mayan cosmology divided the universe into three layers.

13:13The upper world was where the deities lived.

13:16The middle world was where humans lived.

13:18It was carried on the back of a giant turtle or caiman,

13:22and surrounded by a primordial sea.

13:24Beneath it was the underworld, known as Jibalba,

13:28a dark and complex realm of spirits and ancestors.

13:31And certain people, especially rulers, shamans, and elders,

13:36were believed to move between these worlds.

13:39This king was a ruler, had a deity-like name,

13:42and was a toothless elder.

13:43Boy, his power level must have been off the charts.

13:48But that's not all.

13:50Here's the eerie part.

13:52The tomb was buried beneath another tomb,

13:55which was discovered all the way back in 1993.

13:58Archaeologists were investigating a different burial

14:01when they realized there was another chamber hidden beneath it.

14:04An interesting hiding place.

14:07Remarkably, it worked.

14:08For more than 1600 years, no one found him.

14:12This makes Tecab Shach's tomb the first ever discovered at Caracol

14:16that can be definitely linked to a known ruler,

14:19thanks to hieroglyphs, burial contacts, and artifacts.

14:23Now, if you're not a geography or history buff,

14:26you've probably never heard of Caracol.

14:28Today, it's a remote ruin deep in the jungles of western Belize.

14:32But around 16 centuries ago,

14:35Caracol was one of the largest and most powerful cities

14:38in the entire Maya world.

14:40At its peak, it covered over 77 square miles,

14:44which, for reference, is larger than modern-day Belize city.

14:48Its population was around 100,000 people.

14:50That's more than most cities in Europe had at that time.

14:53And it wasn't just big, it was advanced.

14:56Caracol had pyramids, ball courts, palaces, reservoirs,

15:01and a very complex road system.

15:03Stuff like limestone superhighways,

15:06stretching miles through the jungle.

15:08Past excavations also turned up arrowheads,

15:11drills, spindle whorls, figurines, and everyday tools.

15:15King Shach's tomb was one of the three major tombs

15:18found in the northeast Acropolis.

15:21That's near Kana,

15:22the central archaeological complex at Caracol,

15:25and one of the tallest human-made buildings

15:27in all of Belize, even today.

15:29It reaches an imposing 141 feet high,

15:33and contains multiple levels of elite residences and temples.

15:37But even with that size,

15:39finding tombs isn't easy at all.

15:41Most have already been looted.

15:43We don't know what else can be hidden there.

15:45And in some places,

15:47it's too risky to dig up without causing damage.

15:50That's why it took researchers decades

15:52to finally find something untouched.

15:55However, they were able to report

15:57over 850 burials and 175 tombs at Caracol

16:01over their four-decade-long project.

16:04One of the earliest tombs,

16:05dating to around 350 CE,

16:08was a cremation burial

16:09containing ritual artifacts

16:11such as obsidian blades,

16:13atlatl spear points,

16:15and ceramic styles

16:16associated with central Mexico.

16:19So, if you're an archaeologist,

16:21this city seems to be

16:22an old historical gold mine.

16:25And old historical gold mines

16:27often come with warnings.

16:28For one thing,

16:29it's keep up,

16:30the ceiling might fall on you.

16:32Besides,

16:33even though scientists

16:34are excited about this discovery,

16:36if the king can really walk

16:37between realms,

16:39he's probably annoyed by all this.

16:41So, what happens now

16:43that the king's eternal rest

16:44has been disturbed?

16:45Well, by opening and stepping

16:47into the tomb of Tecab Shach,

16:50archaeologists basically

16:51stepped into a sealed sacred place.

16:54Maya tombs weren't just

16:55holes in the ground

16:56with a fancy coffin.

16:58They were sealed like cosmic vaults,

17:00locked up with stone,

17:02soil,

17:02and sometimes elaborate

17:03closing rituals.

17:05The goal was to mark

17:06the end of their use

17:07and protect what was inside.

17:10Archaeology at Caracol

17:11and other Maya cities

17:12shows this in action.

17:14Thick ceiling layers,

17:15termination offerings,

17:17and carefully placed debris,

17:19all saying,

17:20this place is done,

17:21keep out.

17:22Today's archaeologists

17:23still treat them that way,

17:25working under Belizean laws

17:26and cultural protocols,

17:28making sure they explore

17:29with respect

17:30for what these spaces

17:31meant to the people

17:33who built them.

17:33However,

17:35it's eerie to think

17:36about mythology

17:37and whether King Shach

17:38is going to haunt

17:39the archaeologists.

17:40I guess we'll see.

17:42They shouldn't be afraid

17:43because he's old

17:44and has no teeth.

17:45Maybe he will annoy them

17:47with rain.

17:48He's named after a rain deity,

17:49after all.

17:50And we still don't know

17:51about his true power level.

17:53The Mayans were

17:54a fascinating civilization,

17:56and their structures

17:57are still among

17:58the most mysterious ones

17:59you can find.

18:00Despite being isolated

18:02from the known world,

18:03they also built pyramids

18:04without cranes,

18:05mapped stars without telescopes,

18:07and knew how to bury a king.

18:10Karakal is full of secrets.

18:12A hidden tomb

18:13under another tomb?

18:14A toothless king

18:15with a scary-looking mask

18:17and a deity's name?

18:18Almost unbelievable.

18:20And, amazingly,

18:21there is still

18:22stuff being found.

18:24So maybe it's not too late

18:25for me after all.

18:26But first,

18:27let's see the aftermath

18:28of this curse,

18:30huh?

18:32That's it for today.

18:33So hey,

18:34if you pacified your curiosity,

18:36then give the video a like

18:37and share it with your friends.

18:38Or if you want more,

18:39just click on these videos

18:41and stay on the bright side.

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