A 217.78-gram gold piece, which is valued at $1.5 million, is now being deemed the ‘world's largest single crystal specimen’.
An exciting finding was confirmed recently at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Lujan Neutron Scattering Center regarding a unique chunk of gold. The 217.78-gram piece, which is valued at $1.5 million, is now being deemed the ‘world's largest single-crystal specimen’.
The huge nugget landed into the hands of geologist John Rakovan so he could look into whether or not it was the earth’s largest crystal to ever be found. The problem is that he didn’t have the necessary tools to investigate.
That's when he made the decision to venture to Los Alamos so he could thoroughly examine the mineral, utilizing a process called neutron diffractometry.
The US based owner of the sample provided the large specimen along with three others for examination.
It seems as though the pieces are extremely rare, because three of the samples are single-crystal pieces of gold, which drastically sets them apart. Most gold pieces are derived from multiple-crystals.
Using both the SCD and HIPPO instruments at the facility, scientists were able to determine what is called the ‘periodic atomic arrangement’ and crystal texture of the samples without destroying or cutting them in half. All four gold nuggets investigated were found in Venezuela several decades ago.
