Antarctica, the icy landmass at the South Pole, holds a surprising secret. Its tallest active volcano, Mount Erebus, is spewing out not just lava but also something valuable gold.
This incredible finding has sparked great interest among scientists and local residents.
Mount Erebus is the tallest active volcano in Antarctica.
According to reports, American geologists made this remarkable finding back in 1991.
They detected gold particles not only in the volcanic gases but also in the surrounding snow, even as far as 1,000 kilometers away.
Remarkably, Mount Erebus, standing at an impressive summit elevation of 3,794 meters (12,448 feet), continues to be an active volcano, making this phenomenon an ongoing spectacle.
Antarctica's tallest active volcano is erupting gold that could be worth a fortune
Philip Kyle, who studies rocks and minerals at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, said that gold can come from Mount Erebus gets very hot, it releases gas, and this gas carries small bits of gold with it.
The pieces of gold found in the volcano's gas were between 0.1 and 20 micrometers in size, and the ones found in the snow nearby were about 60 micrometers in size.
Even though the gold coming out of the volcano seems very small, scientists think that about 80 grams (2.8 ounces) of gold comes out of Mount Erebus every day.
Gold is valuable, and right now it costs about $75.76 for each gram. So, the volcano gives out around $6,000 worth of gold every day.
But the actual value might change depending on how good the gold is and what the market is like.
Besides just being worth a lot of money, the discovery of Mount Erebus's erupting gold is important for science.
It helps us learn more about how gold is made and how it spreads in the Earth.
But while we are excited about the gold coming from Mount Erebus, we must also remember the devastated past connected to the mountain.
In 1979, a plane called Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed into the side of the mountain during a sightseeing trip in Antarctica.
All 257 people who were on the plane died, and this event was called the Erebus disaster.
