IS YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK GOING TO BLOW ?
The earthquake swarms return to Yellowstone supervolcano…
Whitehall is about 25 miles southeast of Butte in Jefferson County. The town gets its drinking water from two wells — one off Division Street and another a half block east of Whitehall Street. Both wells are right in the middle of town.
NBC Montana was in Whitehall today and saw firsthand gold flakes coming from the faucet.
Mark Brown told us his wife Sharon was finishing up the dishes earlier this week when she noticed something unusual.
Brown explained, “She had pulled the plug to let the water out and there were glistening, gleaming little flecks.”
They showed us what they found — small gold-colored flakes, right in the bottom of the sink.
Brown recalled their disbelief, “That couldn’t possibly be gold, huh? And I was sure it wasn’t.”
He showed us how they are finding the flakes in their tap water and also the toilet tank. They ran multiple tests on the flakes and found one of the most precious metals on earth — gold — was coming out of the tap.
Brown said, “Everything I tried to do to dispel this, I got nothing. And I can’t explain it either. It’s bizarre.”
Among the tests run on the gold flakes was a chemical test where a solution is used to dissolve any metal that isn’t pure gold.
Paul Harper lives next door to the Browns. He’s also seeing gold in his tap water. He deals in antiques and gold and is the one who conducted the chemical test. He told us, “There was no dissolving at all of the gold.”
Harper ran the test again for us. There was no reaction on the flakes, but when the chemical hit gold-painted foil, it melted away.
Harper and the Browns are concerned about what their findings mean for the town’s water supply and its filtration.
“If we’re seeing heavy metals that you can see with the naked eye,” said Brown, “what else might be in there?”
We spoke to Whitehall Public Works Director Jerry Ward Wednesday afternoon. He tells us there is nothing to indicate anything harmful in the water.
Gold is no stranger to Whitehall. In 1982, the Golden Sunlight open pit gold mine went into operation. The mine is located about 5 miles northeast of Whitehall. The pit mine is visible from Interstate 90.
State water quality officials say there is no reason to suspect whatever the homeowners found in their water came from that mine.
We dug into Whitehall’s periodic water quality reports. The city’s water has never tested positive for contamination from any metal. It’s important to note gold is not a regulated contaminate in drinking water.
An official with the State Department of Environmental Quality told us he suspects the flakes reported came from pipes or a pump, or some approved equipment tied to the Whitehall water supply.
We’re told a sample has been sent to a lab in Butte. Estimates are it will take at least 24 hours to find out what’s in the water. When they do, we’ll let you know.
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Regarding the gold flakes showing up in Montana drinking water…
Its volcanic…
Quote the USGS…
“•What are some positive products from volcanoes?
Groundwater heated by large, still-hot magma bodies can be tapped for geothermal energy. And over many thousands of years, heated groundwater has concentrated valuable minerals, including copper, tin, gold, and silver, into deposits that are mined throughout the world. — From: Brantley, 1994, Volcanoes of the United States: USGS General Interest Publication.”
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/VolcanicFacts/misc_volcanic_facts.html
Gold Flakes in the tap water in Whitehall Montana….
How could the main stream media LEAVE OUT the fact that Whitehall MT is actually on North Yellowstone park border??!!
They say they ‘don’t know why’……
I’m here to tell you now…..Its volcanic related… and apparently we’ve got a HUGE problem brewing at yellowstone….. percolating I mean…
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/oddnews/montana-residents-finding-gold-in-their-tap-water-174912578.html
Quote the USGS on groundwater gold…
“•What are some positive products from volcanoes?
Groundwater heated by large, still-hot magma bodies can be tapped for geothermal energy. And over many thousands of years, heated groundwater has concentrated valuable minerals, including copper, tin, gold, and silver, into deposits that are mined throughout the world. — From: Brantley, 1994, Volcanoes of the United States: USGS General Interest Publication.”
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/VolcanicFacts/misc_volcanic_facts.html
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A giant gold deposit could form in an eyeblink of geologic time, scientists announced today.
The large Ladolam deposit on Lihir Island in Papua New Guinea formed inside a recently extinct volcano and was ferried to the surface in solution by rising hot water.
By measuring the rate of gold that rises to the surface each year, the researchers estimate that the deposit could have formed in just 55,000 years. Our planet, by comparison, is about 4.5 billion years old.
“If the age of the Earth was scaled to a 24 hour day, the 55,000 years in which the Ladolam gold deposit formed is represented by the last second in that day,” said lead study author Stuart Simmons, a researcher from University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Gold is a dense and lustrous metal that has been valuable throughout human history. It is highly flexible, virtually indestructible, and extremely rare.
All of the gold ever mined can fit into a cube with 72-foot sides, Simmons told LiveScience.
The researchers lowered a custom-built titanium sampler, designed to collect hot water, into a half a mile deep well, where temperatures reached more than 480 degrees Fahrenheit.
This hot water comes from magma (molten rock) that intruded beneath the volcano, and it carries gold in solution. “When this hot water rises to the surface the gold precipitates forming the deposit,” Simmons said
With more than 1,100 tons of mineable gold, Ladolam is not only one of the youngest but one of the 10 largest gold mines that form in hydrothermal environments.
“It is unique in the world and nowhere else has there been a similar discovery,” Simmons said. “Moreover, the mining is a testament to engineering efforts to safely extract mineral resources from the Earth. The hydrothermal solutions which have to be removed from the mine site are simultaneously used to generate electricity from a renewable resource.”
The study is detailed in the Oct. 13 issue of the journal Science.
