Ice Cold Gold: reality show about prospecting in Greenland

[cmac2012]

Doing the channel surfing thing on a slow morning, I ran across this show on animal planet. 8 guys trying to find riches in purt near virgin territory made available by receding glaciers. I'm generally not a fan of this sort of thing - plundering the earth that is, OTOH, just try stopping it and this is at least an interesting look at terrain that is rugged and otherworldly.

They're looking for rubies and gold - supposedly a monster ruby was found on Greenland not long ago. They had several previous episodes back to back, tonight is the season finale, pst 7 and 10 . So far, it's been a bust other than a few tiny flecks of gold, they're doing a tease that tonight they score rubies, who knows.

[Benz Dr.]

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Doing the channel surfing thing on a slow morning, I ran across this show on animal planet. 8 guys trying to find riches in purt near virgin territory made available by receding glaciers. I'm generally not a fan of this sort of thing - plundering the earth that is, OTOH, just try stopping it and this is at least an interesting look at terrain that is rugged and otherworldly.

They're looking for rubies and gold - supposedly a monster ruby was found on Greenland not long ago. They had several previous episodes back to back, tonight is the season finale, pst 7 and 10 . So far, it's been a bust other than a few tiny flecks of gold, they're doing a tease that tonight they score rubies, who knows.

I scored with Ruby once and then she wanted a diamond but she was no pearl so I gave her a golden hand shake instead. Does that count for anything?

[cmac2012]

Good thing she didn't offer up 45 cents worth of lead. Was she into golden showers?

[Botnst]

Is anything recycled more assiduously than gold?

[aklim]

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Good thing she didn't offer up 45 cents worth of lead. Was she into golden showers?

Or pearl necklaces?

[Diesel911]

Originally Posted by Botnst

Is anything recycled more assiduously than gold?

Old Jokes are.

[cmac2012]

Originally Posted by Botnst

Is anything recycled more assiduously than gold?

Probably not. I've heard of people in some areas who vie for the privilege to sweep dentists' floors. I read somewhere that the volume of the total amount of known gold in existence (in the possession of mankind) would fill less that a standard Olympic pool.

[aklim]

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Probably not. I've heard of people in some areas who vie for the privilege to sweep dentists' floors. I read somewhere that the volume of the total amount of known gold in existence (in the possession of mankind) would fill less that a standard Olympic pool.

How Many Olympic-Sized Swimming Pools Can We Fill With Billionaire Gold? - Forbes

Many online sources give essentially the same value for the total stocks of above-ground gold; it was about 157,000 metric tons by 2007. If the density of gold is 19.3 grams per milliliter, or 0.0193 tons per liter, then we need to divide the total number by the density (remember the density formula from school? It’s Density = Mass/Volume, so just flip it around). Thus we get about 8.2 million liters of gold. If an Olympic-sized swimming pool has a volume of 2.5 million liters, then we divide and get our answer.

So we would need 3.27 swimming pools to hold the entire global supply of gold, which some argue is the entire amount of gold mined since before the Egyptians began mining gold before 2000 BC. Sixty-six per cent of that is said to have been mined since 1950. It is said that conquistador Francisco Pizarro received a 22-ft. by 17-ft. room full of gold, and two of silver, in exchange for captured Inca ruler Atahualpa in 1532. Pizarro took the gold and then executed Atahualpa by garrote for plotting against the Spanish forces and killing his own brother.

[cmac2012]

Now that sounds more definitive. I've never heard it put in those terms, I'm guessing most people who repeated any version of the stat. only barely knew what they were talking about. Even so, 3+ Olympic pools is not a huge volume compared to the size of the earth.

The thing that sobers the hell out of me is the knowledge that there are large amounts of diamonds and rubies buried too far underground to be seen by humans in our lifetimes, maybe never. I saw a public TV bit on the big diamond mine discovered somewhere up yonder in Canada. A recent geology grad, a semi hot looking lady in fact, had a hunch that a lake was a former volcano and that diamonds may have been vomited up from the depths by it.

They had searched long and hard - she pushed for a few more cores and lo and behold, they discovered diamonds right at the end. Has produced humongous quantities since, and they have a cachet as they can be marketed as non-conflict diamonds.

[aklim]

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Now that sounds more definitive. I've never heard it put in those terms, I'm guessing most people who repeated any version of the stat. only barely knew what they were talking about. Even so, 3+ Olympic pools is not a huge volume compared to the size of the earth.

The thing that sobers the hell out of me is the knowledge that there are large amounts of diamonds and rubies buried too far underground to be seen by humans in our lifetimes, maybe never. I saw a public TV bit on the big diamond mine discovered somewhere up yonder in Canada. A recent geology grad, a semi hot looking lady in fact, had a hunch that a lake was a former volcano and that diamonds may have been vomited up from the depths by it.

I believe they were talking about the gold the billionaires would own.

I wouldn't go that far. I would say it is buried too far for us to conceive getting with TODAY's technology. However, just because you cannot conceive it happening today does not rule it out for tomorrow.

[tbomachines]

Another gold mining reality show on a Discovery Network? I think they need to switch back to logging.

[elchivito]

Originally Posted by cmac2012

I saw a public TV bit on the big diamond mine discovered somewhere up yonder in Canada. A recent geology grad, a semi hot looking lady in fact, had a hunch that a lake was a former volcano and that diamonds may have been vomited up from the depths by it.

They had searched long and hard - she pushed for a few more cores and lo and behold, they discovered diamonds right at the end.

Or something like that.

How a Rogue Geologist Discovered a Diamond Trove in the Canadian Arctic

[cmac2012]

Originally Posted by tbomachines

Another gold mining reality show on a Discovery Network? I think they need to switch back to logging.

I've seen bits of the other ones and they did nothing for me. One really grossed me out. Some obnoxious character found some virgin creek in the Yukon and brought in a front loader of some sort IIRC and dug a deep pit in a creek bed. I don't recall if they had much of a haul. The northwest US is supposedly littered with abandoned sites something like that.

I don't imagine these Greenland guys would be any more PC for a vironmentalist like me. I was fascinated by the show mainly because of the rugged Greenland terrain. They discovered (supposdedly) some rubies in the last episode, just by hunting for signs of them and one guy stumbled upon a bunch of them showing their little faces right out of the rock. They extracted what they could from the surface in the one day they had left there and implied they would be back. God only knows what sort of mayhem they're going to visit on that bit of mountain to get at all the rubies they can find.

[cmac2012]

Originally Posted by elchivito

Or something like that.

How a Rogue Geologist Discovered a Diamond Trove in the Canadian Arctic

I recall the PBS episode quite well, I wish I could find something about it, but you're right, the link you provide doesn't sound at all like the one I'm thinking about.