There Is Gold in the Ocean. Here Is Why Nobody Is Mining It.

Yes, there is gold in the ocean. No, you cannot get rich from it. The gold dissolved in seawater is spread so thin, and the gold on the seafloor is so hard to reach, that no one has found a cost-effective way to extract it for profit.

The ROV Deep Discoverer investigates the geomorphology of Block Canyon in the Atlantic Ocean. If it were searching for gold, it would not find any: gold in seawater is measured in parts per trillion. Credit: NOAA.

Gold in the water

The ocean holds gold, but exactly how much is hard to say. Its concentration is tiny. One study found only about one gram of gold for every 100 million metric tons of seawater in the Atlantic and the north Pacific.

Gold on the seafloor

There is also undissolved gold in and on the seafloor. But the ocean is deep, so those deposits lie a mile or two underwater — and when you reach the bottom, the gold is locked in rock that has to be mined.

The bottom line

Dilute in the water, buried in rock on the seafloor: either way, there is currently no cost-effective way to mine or extract gold from the ocean at a profit.

Sources

Based on "Is there gold in the ocean?" from NOAA's National Ocean Service, a work of the United States government in the public domain.