Scientists Confirm There’s About $700 to $900 Trillion Worth of Gold Scattered in Earth’s Oceans

Gold is one of the most valuable minerals on Earth, mainly because of two reasons. First, it has a lot of usage and applications that span millennia of human history, such as in jewelry, status symbols, economic trades, and modern electronics. The other one is because of its limited nature, amplifying its worth.

Scientists theorized that most of the gold on Earth is from extraterrestrial sources, such as outer space. It is believed that it is a remnant of dead stars from supernovas or collisions of neutron stars.

Then it was delivered here through asteroids during the early stages of the formation of the planet, which explains why there is also a significant amount of gold in the core and mantle. Recently, some of this gold from the inner layers of the Earth has been leaking to various volcanic locations and the ocean.

There’s Gold in the Water — Lots of It

According to scientists and oceanographers, Earth’s oceans contain 20 million metric tons of gold dissolved and scattered in seawater. It came from either the inner layers of the Earth or from asteroids thousands to millions of years ago.

So, yes, there is a lot of gold in the ocean, and it is estimated to be about $700 to $900 trillion in total value at today’s markets. This means that this valuation could change, as currently it is many times more than the global economy. But before you dive in looking for that gold, there are reasons why governments and wealthy private organizations are not trying to find it.

Read more: Ocean Service

Why We Can’t Touch It

$771 Trillion Of Gold Lies Hidden In Our Ocean

The gold that exists in the oceans is in incredibly small concentrations, about 1 to 6 parts per trillion, but due to the sheer size of the seawater, it all adds up to the estimated value.

So, you might be thinking now, after reading this, why isn’t anyone trying to get that 700 to 900 trillion dollars worth of gold? The simple answer is no one can. The gold is so diluted in the waters that recovering even a gram is nearly impossible, or it is so expensive that no one can afford it.

In other words, you would need to filter 100 million tons of seawater to get 1 gram of gold. That would take a long time and a lot of resources, for not that much value. So, this means that the limitation is just the technology, and someday, someone will be able to discover and invent a device that could harness this gold efficiently, and maybe it could be you.

The Science Behind the Estimate

Before we discuss the science behind it, one fun fact for our readers is that after World War 1, Nobel Prize–winning chemist Fritz Haber tried to extract gold from the seawater to help pay for Germany’s war reparations, but he ultimately failed for the same reasons mentioned above.

We say science, but the way researchers arrived at this estimated valuation of gold in the ocean is more about the math. They sampled water across various regions in the world, then traced the concentrations and calculated the average.

Next, they multiplied this average by the total volume of the water in the ocean, about 1.332 billion cubic kilometers, and that led them to a theoretical 20 million metric tons of gold in the oceans or $700 to 900$ trillion valuation.

Read more: Forbes

Could We Ever Harvest It in the Future?

The margin of error with the science behind the calculations of total gold in the ocean is wide. However, it is clear that there are hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of gold scattered in the waters.

But, economics is another topic, as getting more supply of anything lowers the demand for it, so its valuation could change once we acquired the technology to harvest all that gold. Regardless, it is still a treasure chest, so the question remains: could we ever invent a technology to get all that gold, or is it scientifically impossible?

The short and optimistic answer is that with Artificial Intelligence or AI, almost anything is possible with enough time and resources. Combined with the future progressions of nanotechnology and chemical engineering, it is more than likely that we will acquire the technology needed to extract the gold from the sea waters effectively.

$700 trillion worth of gold in seawater

Author's Final Thoughts

It was a fun thought experiment to think that our oceans hold that much value in gold. Maybe more than all the vaults and treasure chests we have on land. Science also agrees that it is not fiction, but a reality, and the only problem is that it is out of reach for now. Maybe that is what makes it beautiful and fascinating, a fortune that is everywhere around us, but no one can touch.

Read more: Ancient Human Species, the Neanderthals, Faced a Massive Population Collapse 110,000 Years Ago — The Exact Reason is Unknown