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Fiery Volcano In Colombia Spewing Gold
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Published: October 28, 1994Sign In to E-Mail

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A volcano in Colombia is spewing more than a pound of gold each day into the atmosphere, a scientist said yesterday. He said the volcano was also depositing 45 pounds of gold a year into the rocks lining its crater.

"I expect there will be a rush to stake claims in this volcano," said the scientist, Dr. Fraser Goff, a geologist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Dr. Goff made the discovery at the Galeras volcano in the Colombian Andes.

While gold is sometimes found in extinct volcanoes, Dr. Goff said, the Galeras volcano is venting commercial amounts of gold from its fiery top. This is the first time scientists have detected visible gold particles in an active volcano.

It is not known how much gold the volcano has produced since it began forming more than 500,000 years ago, Dr. Goff said. He presented his findings at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Seattle.