Have any of the rock samples (or meteors from Earth's moon or from Mars) provided a measurable amount of gold, silver, platinum or any other precious metals?
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asked Jul 21, 2013 at 3:59
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$\begingroup$ For the Moon, have a look here: Heiken, G. H. (ed.), Vaniman, D. T. (ed.), French, B. M. (ed.), 1991. Lunar Sourcebook, chapters 5 to 8. Besides some meteorites, there are no rock samples from Mars, unfortunately. $\endgroup$– s-m-eCommented Jul 21, 2013 at 15:13
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$\begingroup$ Do you consider titanium a precious metal? $\endgroup$– robguinnessCommented Jul 24, 2013 at 12:51
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$\begingroup$ @robguinness Yes. Yes, I would. $\endgroup$– Major StackingsCommented Jul 24, 2013 at 17:28
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$\begingroup$ Then, yes, there is quite a large concentration of titanium-bearing minerals in some areas. See this website for some more details: psrd.hawaii.edu/June00/lunarMaria.html $\endgroup$– robguinnessCommented Jul 25, 2013 at 7:02
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2$\begingroup$ In those environs, at-least for now, even apparently non-precious elements such as iron, tin may qualify as 'precious'. $\endgroup$– EveryoneCommented Feb 24, 2015 at 2:37
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2 Answers
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According to this 2013 paper: Prospecting for Native Metals in Lunar Polar Craters (Platts, Boucher, Gladstone) which uses spectra captured from the Lunar orbiter LCROSS, they give the measured/estimated mass abundances:
Silver Ag 0.11%
Gold Au 0.52%
Mercury Hg 0.53% (0.39% according to estimates from the orbiter LRO).
Note that this is only for polar craters which are always in the shadow. They propose electrostatic dust transport of metals which are then trapped in such cold craters, along with volatiles like water. These are small areas compared with the entire Moon, but if you consider early human resource utilization on the Moon, it might be a good place to start.
answered Feb 24, 2015 at 12:08
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$\begingroup$ I know you are quoting figures from a paper, but the values for gold & silver are ridiculously high. They even exceed bonanza values. Most mines, now, on Earth are mining values registering in ppm (g/t). Values of troy ounce per tonne are considered high, but rare (1 tr oz = 31.1035 g). $\endgroup$– FredCommented Oct 27, 2021 at 23:10
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I'm shamelessly clutching the straw given by Major Stackings (who considers titanium to be a precious metal) and present the results of Mars Odyssey's survey with Gamma Ray Spectrometer (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04257)
This is the map of relative abundance of Thorium.
The truth is, any metal should be considered precious on Mars. However, in the chemical sense, precious metals are very strictly defined and neither titanium nor thorium fit the bill.
answered Jul 28, 2013 at 16:56
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$\begingroup$ No concentrations come with the image, but the source description says "Thorium is a naturally radioactive element that exists in rocks and soils in extremely small amounts." I read that as indicating the red areas have extremely small amounts and the blue areas have less; there is no evidence of anything that could be called Thorium ore deposits. $\endgroup$ Commented May 23, 2018 at 11:21