Most of Earth’s gold is locked in the core. But the crust still has a surprising amount. Like, enough to cover the planet in a layer of gold 1.5 feet deep. Don’t start digging with your spoon yet.
One moment, please...
Actually, the crust is mostly oxygen and silicon. Boring, right? But that combo makes quartz and feldspar. So you’re basically walking on a pile of sparkly sand. Fancy.
And diamonds? They form deep in the mantle, then hitch a ride to the crust via volcanic eruptions. Diamonds are just carbon that got really, really angry. And then cooled down.
The Crust Has a “Skin” Problem
Topsoil is the actual skin. Without it, we’d be living on bare rock. And topsoil takes hundreds of years to form an inch. Yet we keep washing it into rivers. Oops.
Also, the crust is lumpy. Mountains are just wrinkles. The Himalayas are still growing because India is smashing into Asia. It’s like two cars merging on a highway. Very slowly merging.
And the deepest hole humans ever dug? That’s the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia. They got 7.5 miles down and found microfossils and water. No dinosaurs. Just slime. Disappointing.
