Can gold pickaxe mine diamond?

The question of whether a pickaxe made from gold could be used to mine and extract diamonds is an interesting one to consider. While gold and diamonds are both highly valued materials, their geological properties and origins are significantly different. Analyzing the characteristics of gold and diamond helps reveal the challenges of using soft, malleable gold tools to mine the hardest known natural mineral.

The Properties of Gold

Gold is a dense, shiny yellow metal that is one of the least reactive chemical elements. Some key properties of gold include:

• Soft – Gold has a Mohs hardness of just 2.5 to 3, making it a very soft metal.
• Malleable – Gold is extremely malleable and ductile. It can be hammered into extremely thin sheets or drawn out into thin wires without breaking.
• Melting Point – Gold has a relatively high melting point of 1064°C. However, long before this temperature it becomes quite soft.
• Corrosion Resistant – Gold does not readily corrode or react with oxygen or other chemicals. This makes it last without tarnishing.

Diamond Characteristics

Diamond has very different properties compared to soft, pliable gold:

• Extremely Hard – Diamond has a perfect 10 rating on the Mohs hardness scale, making it incredibly hard and difficult to cut or crush.
• Heat Resistance – Instead of melting, diamond maintains its rigid crystalline structure when heated and will burn up in the presence of oxygen at around 800°C.
• Brittleness – While hard, diamond has a brittle quality and can shatter if struck sharply, especially along its crystal plane cleavages.
• Compressive Strength – Diamond has tremendous compressive strength but more vulnerability to shearing and tension forces.

Gold vs Diamond: Mining Viability

When evaluating the viability of mining diamonds with a gold pickaxe, the mismatch between gold’s properties compared to diamond’s become clear.

• Soft gold would flatten against ultra-hard diamond. It lacks the capacity to fracture, cut, or grind diamond.
• Gold malleability prevents generating enough force to cleave diamond along its structural planes, where diamond is more vulnerable.
• Gold could not chemically weather or dissolve diamond to extract it. The two materials are inert.
• At diamond’s burn temperature, gold would melt and lose any structural integrity.

Conclusion

In summary, while gold pickaxes have utility for mining relatively soft minerals, gold lacks the hardness, durability, and shear strength required to excavate and extract diamonds. Using gold tools to mine diamond would be incredibly slow and inefficient if not impossible. Diamond mining in reality relies on much stronger materials specialized for the task.