Why can't I find gold in my back yard?
If you go outside with a spade and start digging, the chances are you won't find any gold. You might get lucky or just happen to live in a place where people have been finding gold for centuries. But for the most part, there'll be none. But why is that? Why do metals and minerals show up in some places and not others?
It's a question that's been bothering CrowdScience listener Martijn in the Netherlands, who has noticed the physical effects of mining in various different places while on his travels. It\u2019s also a really important question for the future \u2013 specific elements are crucial to modern technology and renewable energy, and we need to find them somewhere.
Marnie Chesterton heads off on a hunt for answers, starting in a Scottish river where gold can sometimes be found. But why is it there, and how did it get there? Marnie goes on a journey through the inner workings of Earth's geology and the upheaval that happens beneath our feet to produce a deposit that\u2019s worth mining.
On the way she discovers shimmering pools of lithium amongst the arid beauty of the Atacama Desert, meets researchers who are blasting rocks with lasers and melting them with a flame that\u2019s hotter than the surface of the sun, and heads to the bottom of the ocean to encounter strange potato-sized lumps containing every single element on Earth.
And maybe, just maybe, she\u2019ll also find gold.
Contributors:\nLeon Kirk, gold panning expert\nHolly Elliott, University of Derby\nJamie Wilkinson, Natural History Museum, London\nCorrado Tore, SQM, Chile\nYannick Buret, Natural History Museum, London\nAndrea Koschinsky, Jacobs University, Bremen
Presented by Marnie Chesterton\nReport by Jane Chambers\nProduced by Ben Motley for the BBC World Service
[Image: Hands holding Gold Nuggets. Credit: Getty Images]