Gold has long been popular as an ornament due to its rarity and beauty, and in recent years it has also been widely used as a catalyst for chemical reactions and an electrical conductor. Gold is mainly found as gold nuggets in quartz veins, which are crystallized silicon dioxide, but the mechanism by which gold nuggets are formed remains unclear. A new paper published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience reports that gold nuggets in quartz veins may be created by earthquakes.
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