It worked in 1849, if you want to colonize an area start a gold rush.

[CK_John]

A herdsman in China’s remote far west has struck gold after stumbling upon a huge nugget of the precious metal estimated to be worth at least $250,000, state media reported Thursday.

The 7.85 kilo chunk was discovered “practically lying on bare ground”, the official Xinhua news agency said, quoting the herder, an ethnic Kazakh named Berek Sawut.

He found the golden lump, described in the report as “random-shaped” and about 23 centimetres long, 18 centimetres at its widest and up to eight centimetres thick.

Link:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/06/chinese-farmer-finds-gold-nugget-worth-25000-on-the-ground

IMO, it looks like fool's gold

[MineralMan]

1. Nope. It's clearly real gold.

I'm guessing it's worth more than $250K, too. How many ounces in a kilo?

[hobbit709]

4. troy or regular?

[MineralMan]

5. Good point.

Anyhow 7+ kilos is a bunch of ounces. In any case, its value as a specimen far exceeds its value by weight. Large river-worn gold nuggets like that are super rare, and rich collectors pay $$$$ for them.

I used to be in the mineral specimen business, BTW.

[pipoman]

7. I love the California white granite gold specimens. ...

Saw my first one in San Francisco's gold rush museum. ...since I've purchased a couple small specimens.

[Art_from_Ark]

8. Gold is traded in troy ounces

There are 31.1 grams in a troy ounce, so there are 32.15 troy ounces in a kilogram.

[hobbit709]

2. that ain't no pyrite

[FreakinDJ]

3. Right - and Calif's Gold Rush was faked

To steal the land from Mexico

Talk about attempting to rewrite history

[el_bryanto]

6. I'm not sure that's the argument; I think it's more that people noted that

the Gold Rush in California (and the Yukon) brought a lot of people to those territories. In the case of California they stayed. It's not unreasonable to assume that they might try to replicate that history in our day.

But then again, fake gold is relatively easy to detect, so it's at least as likely that there is real gold out there.

Bryant

[pipoman]

10. There are actual veins of gold in California and many of the

Original prospectors became wealthy simply picking nuggets off the ground....the land was already granted to the US in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 before the actual start of the gold rush.

Edit, on second reading it looks like you may have been being sarcastic?

[FreakinDJ]

11. I've panned Gold in the Seirras

Its real alright

But yet South of the Border the story has been circulated the Calif Gold Rush was faked to steal the land from Mexico

I thought that was what the original Op was referring to

[Brother Buzz]

12. Don't call it Frisco...

and don't call the Sierra, Sierras

"The name Sierra is already a plural. To add an s is a linguistic, Californian, and mountaineering sin." - Ansel Adams


I'm kidding because we've mostly lost the war on correcting people about it, but it's something that was drummed into me as a kid.

[Fearless]

9. Well this can't worry Tibet