Planet Earth’s oceans hold a mindblowing quantity of gold, enough to satisfy the greed of Smaug many, many times over. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Scientists have estimated that there’s around one gram of gold dissolved in every 100 million metric tons of seawater in the Atlantic and North Pacific. In other parts of the world, such as the Mediterranean Sea, gold is likely to be at marginally higher concentrations.

The gold arrives in the oceans through a variety of channels. Much of it begins on land: rocks containing trace amounts of gold slowly break off under the assault of rain, rivers, and weather. Bit by bit, dissolved gold is carried to the sea. Even the wind lends a hand, sweeping literal bits of “gold

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