Tuesday, 3 December, 2024 / Edition 36

With Thanksgiving behind us, we’ve officially entered the holiday rush before the new year!

Celebrations came early for some Chinese geoscientists in the form of a new and potentially BIG gold deposit, plus there are some exciting developments in fusion that could help us geos in hot and corrosive downhole environments. Ooooh. Let’s dig into something that’s not turkey and covered in gravy 😊

Sarah Compton

Editor, Enspired

There’s Gold in Them There Hills!

Roman Bardnarchuk/Shutterstock.com

The gold mining industry has seen several big advancements recently.

In March, a treasure hunter found what is likely England’s largest gold nugget. A month later, one study examined a new, two-dimensional gold called goldene, and in September, Australian researchers published a new theory suggesting seismic activity in earthquakes plays a role in gold formation.

Now, a new gold discovery in China is making headlines, as an estimated 1,000 tonnes of gold could be waiting to be unearthed. What’s propelling this industry forward all of a sudden? The same tech and innovative thinking that geos use every day!

As we petroleum geoscientists know, collecting core is key to any exploration or reservoir characterization work, and cores, paired with 3D models, take center stage with this discovery.

• The Geological Bureau of Hunan Province discovered 40 gold veins within a depth of two kilometers (1.2 miles) in the northeast Pingjiang County in Hunan, thought to contain 300 metric tons of gold.

• Additional reserves at three kilometers deep are suggested by 3D models of the veins.

• Core samples suggest every metric ton of ore could contain as much as 138 grams of gold, which is insane since such ore is considered high grade if it contains more than eight grams.

The discovery occurred in the Wangu gold field. It might have been guided by a 2022 paper investigating the different stages of gold formation in the area, giving suggestions on mineral pairings for which to search.

The headlines are eye-popping, but extrapolating core data to apply to a wide area can be tricky, and I couldn’t find the exact data behind the headlines, so some level of skepticism naturally exists.

Regardless, if the discovery pans out even a little bit, it stands to be the world’s biggest gold discovery to date.

Despite the odds, perhaps a similar oil and gas discovery is on the horizon as well! There are countless logs and core that have been collected during the more than 100 years we have been drilling for oil, and I know many of you geoscientists reading this cannot resist a good treasure hunt. It may be just a matter of time before innovation, successful research, and tech advances combine in a similar powerful leap forward for the energy sector.

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Heat-Resistant Alloy Could Hold Promise Beyond Fusion

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Remember last week when we looked at the potential for nuclear fusion energy?

One big challenge in that space is building a reactor that can withstand extremely high temperatures, but a group of researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo are confronting that challenge head on with a new heat-resistant alloy.

Though it’s being developed for use in fusion reactors, my geo mind immediately went to high-temperature reservoirs, including (especially?) geothermal reservoirs.

• The original alloy the scientists worked with is made of iron, chromium, and aluminum, but it was enhanced by dispersing tiny oxide particles throughout its structure, creating an oxide dispersion-strengthened (ODS) alloy.

• To further boost durability, the researchers coated the material with aluminum oxide, a substance known for its exceptional hardness and resilience.

• Altogether, this made a more heat-resistant alloy capable of resisting melting, corrosion, and structural breakdown at high temperatures.

Again, geo brain here... but those resistances at high temperatures sound an awful lot like requirements for drilling materials and pipe in downhole conditions of high temperature reservoirs.

All that’s needed now is a way to cost-effectively scale up, which sounds like a perfect place for geoscientists to step in to help source materials, as well as describe and constrain modeled downhole environments.

Dig deeper: For more information on the new alloy, read here.

A message from AAPG

As AI is increasingly used in multiple ways to find and develop subsurface energy resources, from oil and gas, geothermal, lithium brine mining, critical minerals, as well as energy storage and CCUS, the input from domain experts is mission-critical—geoscientists and engineers are needed now more than ever!

Equip yourself to use these tools by attending AAPG's Generative AI, Machine Learning and Analytics in Subsurface Energy Workshop, 10-11 December at the Norris Conference Center in Houston, TX. Register today and save $100!

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✉️ To get in touch with Sarah or suggest a topic for Enspired, send an email to editorial@aapg.org.