Case file · Anomaly hotspot
Mount Erebus breathes gold
In 1991 researchers reported that Mount Erebus, Antarctica's most active volcano with a lasting lava lake, gives off tiny crystals of metallic gold, later estimated at about 80 g a day, found in air up to 1,000 km away.
1991 CE · -77.53, 167.15 · status: official
The account
The crystals are no bigger than 20 micrometres. Volcanologists such as Philip Kyle called it a geological curiosity rather than a resource. How such well-formed crystals grow from a gas that carries very little gold is not fully understood.