Monday, 27th June 2005 (4766 views)

Scientists have discovered the existence of gold in tree tings.

Using a nuclear reactor, US scientists found the gold in the rings, typically used to ascertain the age of a tree.

According to the scientists it is likely the precious metal is in the trees because of volcanic eruptions.

Kenan Unlu, now at Pennsylvania State University, told Live Science: "Initially, when we began this work at Cornell University, we were simply looking to see what elements in tree rings could be measured using neutron activation analysis."

Some rings showed particularly high levels of gold and further research revealed these were added in years of known volcanic eruptions.

Scientists will now look at trees from the past 6,000 years and the last 600 years are being studied to improve the skills involved with the procedure.

Gold ends up in the trees when they pull more nutrients from the ground during volcano eruptions because of a lack of light and nutrients.

 

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