Gold deposits are formed via a very wide variety of geological processes. Deposits are classified as primary, alluvial or placer deposits, or residual or laterite deposits. Often a deposit will contain a mixture of all three types of ore.
Plate tectonics is the underlying mechanism for generating gold deposits. The majority of primary gold deposits fall into two main categories: lode gold deposits or intrusion-related deposits.
Lode gold deposits, also referred to as orogenic gold are generally high-grade, thin, vein and fault hosted. They are primarily made up of quartz veins also known as lodes or reefs, which contain either native gold or gold sulfides and tellurides. Lode gold deposits are usually hosted in basalt or in sediments known as turbidite, although when in faults, they may occupy intrusive igneous rocks such as granite.
Lode-gold deposits are intimately associated with orogeny and other plate collision events within geologic history. It is thought that most lode gold deposits are sourced from metamorphic rocks by the dehydration of basalt during metamorphism. The gold is transported up faults by hydrothermal waters and deposited when the water cools too much to retain gold in solution.
Intrusive related gold (Lang & Baker, 2001) is generally hosted in granites, porphyry, or rarely dikes. Intrusive related gold usually also contains copper, and is often associated with tin and tungsten, and rarely molybdenum, antimony, and uranium. Intrusive-related gold deposits rely on gold existing in the fluids associated with the magma (White, 2001), and the inevitable discharge of these hydrothermal fluids into the wall-rocks (Lowenstern, 2001). Skarn deposits are another manifestation of intrusive-related deposits.
Placer deposits are sourced from pre-existing gold deposits and are secondary deposits. Placer deposits are formed by alluvial processes within rivers and streams, and on beaches. Placer gold deposits form via gravity, with the density of gold causing it to sink into trap sites within the river bed, or where water velocity drops, such as bends in rivers and behind boulders. Often placer deposits are found within sedimentary rocks and can be billions of years old, for instance the Witwatersrand deposits in South Africa. Sedimentary placer deposits are known as leads or deep leads.
Placer deposits are often worked by fossicking, and panning for gold is a popular pastime.
Laterite gold deposits are formed from pre-existing gold deposits (including some placer deposits) during prolonged weathering of the bedrock. Gold is deposited within iron oxides in the weathered rock or regolith, and may be further enriched by reworking by erosion. Some laterite deposits are formed by wind erosion of the bedrock leaving a residuum of native gold metal at surface.
A bacterium, Cupriavidus metallidurans plays a vital role in the formation of gold nuggets, by precipitating metallic gold from a solution of gold (III) tetrachloride, a compound highly toxic to most other microorganisms.
Similarly, Delftia acidovorans can form gold nuggets.