To settle the dispute once and for all, a team of researchers led by Melvyn Lintern from the country's national scientific agency CSIRO, compared the leaves of the eucalyptus trees near a known gold prospecting site in Western Australia to those off trees growing about 3,000 feet away. They also conducted an in-house experiment by planting the trees in agreenhouse - some with potting soil that contained particles of gold and others, without.
In each case they discovered that the leaves of most of the trees that were close to the gold deposits contained microscopic particles of the precious metal, while the others did not. This has led the researchers who published their findings in the October edition of Nature Communication, to conclude that the eucalyptus roots which extend tens of meters into the ground, act like hydraulic pumps drawing up water that contains the gold. Theyspeculate that the precious metal is toxic to the plant, which is why it moves it out to its branches and leaves, where it can be tossed out easily. The one thing that the team does need to investigate further, is why despite being close to the deposits, certain trees are able to avoid drawing up the toxic metal.
However, before you start dreaming of participating in the next 'gold rush', keep in mind that the amount of gold is less than 0.000005% of the weight of each leaf or so minuscule that one would have to remove all the leaves from 500 eucalyptus trees, to yield enough for a simple gold band.
So why all the excitement? Because it will allow Australian gold mining companies to prospect for the precious metal more intelligently. This will not only help reduce the cost of discovering the metal, but also the environment, because it reduces unnecessary drilling.
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