How does gold form?

Gold is formed by the Earth's crust. The fluids move through the rocks over a large area and dissolve gold. When these fluids cool or react with other rocks the dissolved gold moves in cracks forming veins. As well as gold, the fluids carried other dissolved minerals, such as quartz. This is why gold is often found with quartz. These are known as primary gold deposits and to extract the gold the rock containing the veins of gold has to be dug up, crushed and processed.