Gold has an atomic number of 79. It is one of many chemical elements. Lot's of people seek gold. It is a precious metal. One of the things gold is commonly used for is art.

You can find gold in the form of nuggets or grains within rocks. Sometimes gold is found in places inside of rocks called veins. Veins are spaces in a rock that contain things like crystals.

Gold has distinct characteristics that make it what it is. It is soft, shapable, shiny, and dense. Because it is soft, gold is one of the most malleable metals known to man. This means it can be hammered down into thin sheets and used in a whole bunch of different ways.

Pure gold is gold that doesn't contain any additives. It is a very bright yellow. It has a very shiny luster to it. This metal doesn't oxidize in water or air which helps it maintain its yellow color and lustrous shine.

Pure gold is not cut out for many practical uses due to it being too soft. People discovered a way to hardening pure gold with other metals. The most popular metal mixed with gold is copper. This allowed the gold to be shaped and used for a lot of different things. This also created a need to measure the amount of pure gold mixed in. This unit of measure became known as the carat (k).

Some people were curious in 2006 about how much gold had been mined. They did the research and found tha 158,000 tons of gold had been brought up out of the earth by the end of 2006. That is an amazing amount of gold.

Gold has many excellent qualities. It is a great conductor of electricity. It is used in electronics. It has a unique ability to avoid corrosion or oxidation. This makes it a perfect metal for dentistry.

Gold used to be used as money. This all changed with the introduction of paper money. Paper money was introduced because there is only a limited supply of gold in the world. With paper money, you can print as much as you want. Switzerland was the last country to back its money with gold until 1999.