Enormous meteorite impacts thought to have brought precious metals to Earth.

Geologists research the origins of precious metals:
The Earth’s mantle contains too much precious metal, at least theoretically. Because as the planet was still hot and mostly liquid around 4.5 billion years ago, it divided into two constituent parts: a metallic core and a rocky mantle. According to all calculations and experiments, it is thought that in this phase all the gold and other precious metals existing up to that point sank together into the Earth’s core.

Rare precious metals such as platinum, gold and iridium could have been brought to Earth by iron meteorites:
This is according to a new research work by Dr. Gerhard Schmidt from the University of Mainz in Germany. He will present his results at the “European Planetary Science Congress” (EPSC) in Munster.

For twelve years, Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and his colleagues studied concentrations of siderophile elements at different meteorite impact sites and at other places on the • Earth’s crust and the • Earth’s mantle. They also studied samples from the surface of the • moon and from • Mars meteorites.

The EPSC (European Planetary Science Congress) is organised by the EU-financed Europlanet-Initiative, with which it is intended to promote cooperation among European planetary researchers and strengthen Europe’s competitiveness in this area. It is also intended to support European participation in important planetary fact-finding missions and to make the public more aware of planetary research. Europlanet is financed under the field of action “Research Infrastructures” of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6).