“Supergiant” gold deposits could be worth more than $80 billion

Two large gold deposits discovered in China could hold a collective mass of more than 2,000 metric tons (2,200 US tons) of the precious material — the largest ever found within the country’s borders.

If confirmed by further geological studies, the Wangu field in Hunan province and the Dadonggou field in Liaoning province could be worth billions, with the Wangu field alone estimated to be worth more than 600 billion yuan ($83 billion).

These estimates come with significant caveats – something about not counting the golden eggs before the goose has laid them – not the least of which is that Wangu’s assessment assumes that the entire resource can be mined and that current gold prices will hold, conditions rarely achieved in real-world mining.

Related: It literally takes fire and brimstone to transport gold to the surface of the Earth

Watch the video below for a recap:

The Wangu deposit was reported by Xinhua, China’s official state news agency, in late 2024 as a “supergiant” discovery with the potential to dramatically expand China’s gold resources.

“Many rock cores drilled showed visible gold,” bureau prospector Chen Rulin said at the time of the discovery.

The report stated that the deposit contained 300 tonnes of gold reserves – meaning gold that has been graded and quantified – down to a depth of 2,000 meters (1.2 miles), with an estimate of over 1,000 tonnes down to 3,000 metres.

To date, no scientific paper or report has been published on the Wangu field, but the exploration report may still be in preparation.

The Dadonggou deposit can be even more impressive.

According to China’s State Council Information Office, subsequent government briefings suggested a possible resource approaching 1,500 tonnes – higher than the more than 1,000 tonnes estimated in a report published in China Mining Magazine at the beginning of this year.

The discovery was made by the Liaoning Fifth Geological Brigade, which surveyed the region, finding that the gold tracks there considered economically unviable in the 1980s actually belong to a large, continuous mineral belt about 3,000 meters long and 1,500 meters wide.

Every well drilled by prospectors contained gold, the paper said. It’s relatively low grade, at 0.3 to 1 part per million – so the amount of gold per tonne of material is quite small – but researchers say it’s easy to mine, with a potential gold recovery rate of 65 to 91 percent.

The interesting part here can be type by Deposit Repress by Dadongong.

It occurs adjacent to the Tan-Lu Fault, a major tectonic fault zone with large horizontal shear fractures along which minerals such as gold and pyrite have been deposited over time.

The features differ from anything else in that region, suggesting that similar gold deposits may have been overlooked simply because the geology did not look as expected for a significant gold deposit.

So while it’s true that there appears to be a large amount of gold in the Dadonggou deposit, its greater value may serve as a pointer to identifying others like it – if the grade holds and mining proves as fruitful as initial investigation predicts.

Gold, for all its wonderful uses, is not very abundant in the upper layers of the Earth. For every ton of crustal material, there is about 0.004 grams of precious metal. Yet, somehow, there are regions that contain “bonanza” abundances.

In 2021, researchers in Canada proposed that rich gold deposits may be more common than previously thought and may have occurred in more other contexts than previous estimates allowed.

People have treasured gold for thousands of years, using it in unique tools, art, jewelry, and burials. However, the precious heavy metal still surprises us with new discoveries.

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In 2024, researchers in Sweden created goldenene, a two-dimensional, one-atom-thick type of gold with properties not seen in its regular form.

Also last year, Australian scientists proposed that earthquakes could help forge large nuggets of gold deep underground, while in England a metal detector discovered what could be the country’s biggest ever nugget.

Researchers continue to develop potential medical uses for the nanoparticles of this valuable, finite resource, too: from fighting antimicrobial resistance to preserving vision and treating Parkinson’s symptoms.

One study even suggests that gold nanoparticles could improve the flavor of our wine.

It is not clear how many bonanzas of the precious ore remain to be discovered around the world. Evidence is beginning to suggest that gold may have peaked in 2018.

Until more data emerges, the recently reported scales remain tentative, with more detailed reports no doubt in the works.

Other large deposits, such as Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell in Canada, with about 4,790 tons, and Pebble in the US, with about 3,310 tons of gold, may still leave them in the dust.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Research on the Dadonggou deposit is published in China Mining Magazine.