Alright... who did this? WHO DID THIS?! 🤭👑🌋 So apparently, someone hiked in the middle of the night, I imagine, with a bucket of golden paint and distributed that in random places throughout the new and hardened lava fields around Fagradalsfjall. I assume to prank scientists and cause some confusion. 🥴🎨 The fact is, the physics and chemistry do not add up here, so nice try! The troll or trolls behind this prank did however do some homework but not good enough! There is in fact, gold on Reykjanes, but it forms in entirely different circumstances in the crust and has been found in boreholes by the geothermal power plants. This is not something that happens on the surface, let alone this quickly! To be able to form gold in the crust below Reykjanes, you would need; hot geothermal water with dissolved minerals, pre-existing cracks in the crust that can be filled in with metals and minerals and lastly, time, a lot of geological time... ⏳ And let’s not forget that the melting point for gold is 1064°C and the new lavas by Fagradalsfjall were 1100-1200°C while liquid, so gold would just melt and fade into the material as a trace element. So finding solid gold within a fresh basaltic lava flow is similar to finding a bone from a T-rex in Iceland. Things just don’t add up! 😅🦖🦴 Let’s keep in mind also that even though this prank is funny and original, this is still vandalism. So please do not repeat this prank or similar ones. New lava fields in Iceland are protected! 🙏🏼 ©Copyright - geology_with_helga