Yes the company has said that the gold is "ionic" but certain posters on this thread want to blur this piece of information for their own purposes by putting up photos of visible gold. If this deposit is truley very large any visible gold component of the deposit will be very small by comparison to the so called "ionic gold". I think using the term particulate in your post is the wrong term here as it implies that "particles" (grains) of gold exist. That is not ionic gold. You are however correct in saying gold can exist in nature at nano scale as well as the micro and milli scale we typically see in rocks.
OK let's stick to the term "ionic" gold then.
First of all a few basic facts about the size of a gold atom.
The approximate size of a single gold atom is approximately 0.1441 nanometers (which is = 0.1441 millionth of a milimeter). The nucleus of the gold atom (ie proton + nuetrons only, without the "orbiting" electrons which give gold its electronic properties and make gold gold, ie what it is, ie a gold coloured metal) is much much smaller. In fact the nucleus of a gold atom is approximately 10,000 times smaller than the atom itself at 0.000014 nano meters.
Gold can exist as ions with the most common ions being Au + , Au 3+ , ie gold atoms with a postive electronic charge of 1 or 3, ie cations with 1 or 3 less electrons than protons in the atom. When gold exists like this it is most commonly in the form of a solid, an ionic compound primarily as a +3 ion; the most common compounds are gold (III)
chloride (AuCl 3 ), and
chlorauric acid (HAuCl 4 ).
There are two ionic compounds of gold that are used in medicine and have been found effective in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and tuberculosis and potentially HIV, Amebiasis and Ovarian cancer.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_aurothiomalatehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AuranofinGold can also exist as nano particles (not ionic gold) called colloids (activated gold), which exists when gold particles get suspended in a fluid, typically water. Colloids are still just very small particles of gold (not ions) and there size depends on the size and shape of the gold clusters in suspension, typically colloidal hold has a size less than 100 nanometres (=0.1 microns) for spherical particles.
Colloidal gold has been known about since the 4th century and used to make stained glass. When the gold colloid particles are suspended in water the water gains an intense ruby red colour or blue/purple colour and its colour is due to the light scattering properties of the colloids.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloidal_goldThe company doesn't make much reference to the "ionic gold" anymore that is claimed to be the form of gold that constitutes these deposits and the reason for the difficulty in being able to extract and assay the gold. One of the original explanations the company gave for the gold not being able to be assayed by conventional means was due to relativistic motions of electrons on the chemistry of gold and platinum. Nothing was said about by the company after the time it was reported in a compamy announcement.
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/an...2668429/page-17?post_id=16672454#.XE5o5Ro_WhAAfter all this time one would expect a much better explanation for what form this "ionic gold" takes. We are just expected to believe that the gold is smaller than the reach of scientific instruments with 1 micron resolution, ie that the gold is 1,000 times smaller than even the most highly concentrated beam of electrons that an electron microscope can produce.
Eshmun
