A precious metal, gold, is purchased by people all over the world for a variety of reasons that are often impacted by socio-cultural factors, market trends, & macro-economic drivers throughout their country of residence.

When it comes to the Periodic table of Elements, gold is the 79th element and one of the most easily recognised of the lot. It is malleable and lustrous, which makes it an excellent metalworking material for many applications. Gold is classified as a transition metal in terms of its chemical composition.. As a result of their ability to bond with other elements using not only their outer shells of electrons (the negatively charged electrons that whirl all around nucleus of an atom), but also their outermost two shells, transition metals are one of the most interesting elements to study. Due to the huge amount of electrons throughout transition metals, the usual orderly trying to sort of electron density into shells all around nucleus is disrupted, resulting in the formation of a void.

Mining for gold is a much more time-consuming and complicated process than most people realise — on average, it tends to take between 10 and 20 years before such a mine is ready to produce content that could be refined. Here is where you can learn more about this method.