Water in Earth’s oceans contains gold that is often visible with the naked eye

By Adrian Villellas – earth.com

There is gold in the ocean. The catch is that it is present at levels so tiny that ordinary tools cannot grab it. People have dreamed of scooping treasure from seawater for more than a century. The chemistry and the math tell a cooler story.

Kelly Falkner helped set the baseline for what is actually in the water. Her team’s measurements and the work they inspired gave scientists numbers they could trust.

Gold enters seawater from rivers, aeolian dust, and hydrothermal vents along the seafloor. It also binds to particles and forms dissolved complexes with chloride, which keeps most of it spread thin.