Scientists accidentally created a new compound called gold hydride, showing how extreme conditions can push familiar ...

Two violent massacres just this month demonstrate the growing risks of illegal mining in Latin America. The region’s criminal groups have increasingly turned to illicit gold as a source of revenue ...

A small, leafy, green peanut plant grows out of a patch of dirt. When David McLagan’s team sampled mercury isotopes in cassava, maize, and peanut crops (like the one shown here) grown downwind of a ...

With gold prices at an all-time high, illegal gold mining is again rising— a recurring pattern between gold prices and illegal gold mining. Earlier this month, several top-tier news reports covered ...

In the Philippines, as in many places across the globe, mercury has long been central to how small-scale gold miners earn their living. Used as an easy way to separate gold from other minerals they ...

Geopolitical tensions and persistent inflation concerns have sent investors flocking to gold in record numbers, driving prices to new highs above $2,700 per ounce. This surge in buying has attracted ...

The quickest way to separate gold from rock, Sadio Camara says, is with a drop of mercury. She empties a dime-sized packet of the silvery liquid into a plastic bucket of muddy sediment outside her ...

After the discovery of a 17-pound nugget in Little Meadow Creek, North Carolina, the state became a major hotbed of gold mining as a part of the first American gold rush in 1799. Early discoveries ...

The surge in gold prices is driving a rapid expansion in informal and unregulated gold mining that is often illegal and ecologically destructive, according to the World Gold Council.