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The gold jewellery that you purchase in the shops is refined gold. Gold as a precious metal in the ground looks nothing like it either in colour or texture. Gold is a crystal but it rarely looks like other crystals occuring naturally.
In its prosaic form gold is a chemical element, a lustrous, dense, yellow precious metal in Group 11, Period 6, of the periodic table. Although it occurs naturally in a pure form it is important because it is more or less indestructible, yet very malleable.
It is attractive as the basis for jewellery because it is worth something and therefore signifies a commitment as a wedding ring, and also insurance. Gold can be sold to make a quick profit if there is an immediate emergency.
Gold can be quite soft when found panning for gold, but it is also found in plates, composite lumps and large holey pieces with a sponge like texture. It has been desribed as nails, bird droppings and wire netting.
As gold grows and develops it has the ability to push other minerals in the ground aside. However because it is relatively soft it can be shaped by other things in the ground which accounts for its rather diverse shapes.
However that affects their shape and often makes gold highly misshapen. If the gold has not travelled far from its quartz bed, it will have the mark of the quartz imprinted on it.
Often gold will travel usually in water or streams, and this always leaves marks of wear and tear on the metal. Because it can travel far from where it grew it could be anywhere which makes prospecting for new gold difficult because even
geologists cannot always predict its path.
The process to get gold out of the ground onto the finger as it were is a four stage process, prospecting which is the finding of gold, mining which is taking gold out of the ground, extracting the gold from the composite piece, and refining,
getting in the gold jewellery stage.
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