Synonyms
Aurum (Latin)
Definition
Precipitation/Bioaccumulation of gold is the precipitation of fine-grained gold colloids by microbial activities.
Nugget. A natural gold grain (>5 mm, >200 mg).
The impact of the use of microbial activity for the solution and precipitation of gold was undervalued for a long period, thus affording the opportunity for economic and environmentally friendly gold bio-processing. Furthermore, the current high price of gold has led to intensive research into the precipitation of gold.
Some iron and sulfur oxidizers (e.g., Acidothiobacillus ferrooxidans, Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans) contribute to the disintegration of important gold ores (Nordstrom and Southam, 1997). In an environment of gold-bearing rocks, the dissolved gold content is 40 times higher than in comparable non-gold-bearing areas (Benedetti and Boulègue, 1991). It has been shown that the dissolution of gold is dominated by the gold thiosulfate complex \({{\rm Au(S}_{\rm 2} {\rm O}_{\rm 3} {\rm...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Benedetti, M., and Boulègue, J., 1991. Mechanism of gold transfer and deposition in a supergene environment. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 55, 1539–1547.
Bischoff, G. C. O., 1997. The biological origin of bacterioform gold from Australia. Neues Jahrbuch Geologische Paläontologische Abhandlungen, H6, 329–338.
Karthikeyan, S., and Beveridge, T. J., 2002. Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms react with and precipitate toxic soluble gold. Environmental Microbiology, 4(11), 667–675.
Kashefi, K., Tor, J. M., Nevin, K. P., and Lovley, D. R., 2001. Reductive precipitation of gold by dissimilatory Fe(III)-reducing bacteria and archaea. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 67(7), 3275–3279.
Lengke, M. F., and Southam, G., 2005. The effect of thiosulfate-oxidizing bacteria on the stability of the gold–thiosulfate complex. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 69(15), 3759–3772.
Lengke, M. F., Ravel, B., Fleet, M. E., Wanger, G., and Southam, G., 2006. Mechanisms of gold bioaccumulation by filamentous cyanobacteria from gold(III)–chloride complex. Environmental Science & Technology, 40(20): 6304–6309.
Nakajima, A., 2003. Accumulation of gold by microorganisms. World Journal of Microbiology, 19, 369–374.
Nordstrom, D. K., and Southam G., 1997. Geomicrobiology of sulfide mineral oxidation. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 35, 361–390.
Reith, F., Rogers, S., McPhail, D. C., and Webb, D., 2006. Biomineralization of gold: biofilms on bacterioform gold. Science, 313, 333–336.
Reith, F., Lengke, M. F., Falconer, D., Craw, D., and Southam, G., 2007. The geomicrobiology of gold. ISME Journal, 1, 567–584.
Reith, F., Etschmann, B., Grosse, C., Moors, H., Benotmane, M. A., Monsieurs, P., Grass, G., Doonan, C., Vogt, S., Lai, B., Martinez-Criado, G., George, G. N., Nies, D. H., Mergeay, M., Pring, A., Southam, G., and Brugger, J., 2009. Mechanisms of gold biomineralization in the bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(1), 17757–17762.
Sand, W., Gehrke, T., Jozsa, P.-G., and Schippers, A., 2001. (Bio)chemistry of bacterial leaching – direct vs. indirect bioleaching. Hydrometallurgy, 59, 159–175.
Southam, G., and Beveridge, T. J., 1996. The occurrence of sulfur and phosphorus within bacterially derived crystalline and pseudocrystalline octahedral gold formed in vitro. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 60(22), 4369–4376.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Hoffmann, VE. (2011). Gold. In: Reitner, J., Thiel, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geobiology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_106
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_106
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-9211-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-9212-1
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences