Researcher Developing New Hand-held Gold Sensor

[Steve Herschbach]

This could be an exciting development for prospectors if the cost is something most of us could afford.

"Instead of a pan and a pick ax, prospectors of the future might seek gold with a hand-held biosensor that uses a component of DNA to detect traces of the element in water. The gold sensor is the latest in a series of metal-detecting biosensors under development by Rebecca Lai, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Other sensors at various stages of development detect mercury, silver or platinum. Similar technology could be used to find cadmium, lead, arsenic, or other metals and metalloids."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-hand-held-gold-sensor.html#jCp 

[flakmagnet]

What an interesting concept. Thanks for taking the time to keep us current

with the latest thinking. It's fun to scratch the surface and learn a little.

[Reno Chris]

I'm skeptical that this will prove to be of much use in finding gold deposits.  I'm thinking about all the gold mined from deposits where it is naturally dissolved in water.  I think it is pretty much zero. 

[Steve Herschbach]

Everything has limitations, just as in basic geochemical prospecting. It might be better in most cases to go after trace elements instead of the gold itself. I used to sell chemical based geochem kits and they were not cheap nor easy to use. Be nice to have an instrument based alternative if it were affordable.

[jasong]

One application I can envision from reading that article is testing artisanal springs bubbling up in potentially gold bearing areas. Its almost like cheap, ready made coring in a way for the passerby prospector who can't be drilling, the water might bring up gold ions from depths where there is no indication of the deposit itself on the surface.

Or for that matter just testing water from wells to see if any local water tables are holding dissolved gold. Most water tables are fairly shallow, geologically speaking, but it'd still be an interesting prospecting method potentially.

Methylene blue is cheap and easy to get, I wonder if gold III binds to anything else other than adenine which might be easier to synthesize or acquire that also has similar electrical properties - I'm not sure I understand what they mean by "flexible probes" and how that works into the invention. Just curious, it seems like something not too difficult to tinker around with and build if the article went into a little more detail...

[AU_Solitude]

It would be useful to test water run offs in draws, seasonal creeks, etc; you could quickly see if they are potentially gold bearing without putting in hours of work. Definitely a supplemental tool but amazing tech nonetheless.

[Steve Herschbach]

Well, part of the problem as Chris pointed out is gold is not all that prone to dissolving in water. We have had classic water geochemical tests available for a long time. I had a ton of them for Alaska when a series came out up there right after geochem became easily available. The state ran them all over the place, and it became obvious very fast that it is not so simple as just testing a water drainage for a gold result. Creeks full of gold would show no gold at all in a normal geochem test. But if you were chasing gold ores carrying other trace elements that could be used in some cases. Part of that may have just been limitations on the sensitivity of the testing method employed but there is no doubt that gold does not like to corrode or dissolve, and that is a key thing you want if a mineral is to be amenable to goechemical sampling.

That said, very interesting report here that says that gold may indeed be present in waters in Nevada http://www.nevadaexploration.com/_resources/geochem_cortez.pdf

[idahogold]

a guy in new medows idaho swears that at his parents house[ that gold comes out of their tap  and its in your glass of water and is from the well on the property

[DDancer]

Uhm so I get this sensor and happen to the loo... well kinda like a cell phone I drop it and I get a gold reading does that mean I.... uhh whiz gold?  *bad taste sure but hey :)*

Being diabetic and having to take blood for sugar levels such a device is not an unforeseen event.  There has been a lot, I do mean a lot, of micro measuring advances.  I just don't see the use of such an item for prospecting when in the end you still got to dig alot of ore and assay it.  Many minerals are trace available, Idahogold's comment reminds me of a few devices that people have made to recover gold from tap water as well as an old saw about a guy in Mexico that could drive gold from common materials.

[klunker]

 Interesting. but at this time I would rather hire Mr. Ralph for a day. But I'll admit I am 30 years behind the times and loosing ground fast.