Dr Frank Reith, ARC Future Fellow, was featured on the cover of the Saturday edition of the Advertiser’s Business Section.

Dr Reith was interviewed about his work on the gold geochemical cycle, which was published in Chemical Geology.

The Gold geochemical cycle is how gold is dispersed and dissolved in the Earth’s surface. His team have shown this cycle takes only years to decades – which is the blink of an eye in geological time!
Microorganisms are involved in the geochemical cycle and can dissolve and re-concentrate Gold in the environment. Dr Reith’s lab have examined bacteria on Gold grains from the Prophet Mine in Queensland and found that the surface of the Gold grain was covered in a biofilm which contained over 100 species of bacteria!

Dr Reith hopes to use his results to work with industry to measure Gold in the environment and study how microorganism communities are affected by mining.

Read the full story here.