Voisy just published a paper on gold nugget formation under seismic piezometric conditions that has pretty much gone viral. Even Anton Petrov on YouTube has chimed in. The full text is hard to find…and the gold generated in the quartz oscillation experiment only produced 5 micron crystals. Probably from quartz crystals from gold veins with fluid inclusions. I think gold nuggets grow like bone…under physical stress…but what about copper?
The research on gold nuggets shows no "epitaxial" gold crystals that would suggest "supergene" deposition, and none host copper inclusions...only inclusions of Ag, Galena, Bi containing minerals and occasionally Hg minerals. Surprisingly there isn't even any report of Iron oxides or quartz, both of which I would have expected. See the article below. My guess is that the conditions of Cu mobilization under the proposed electroctrochemical reactions such as those described below don't mobilize copper...even if gold is in bornite or covellite. It would seem likely that gold nuggets would be found associated with magnetic highs surrounding porphyry systems...but apparently not. My guess is that the really big gold masses are the collapsed "throat" zone of favorable epithermal areas....those should show inclusions of quartz and commonly associated bits of sinter and whatever. See the specimen from the "Ace of Spades" deposit in the Yukon. It came from a vein...and if hit with enough piezometric and resistive electrical heating...would it form a giant nugget?
https://www.iflscience.com/earthquakes-and-piezoelectricity-could-trigger-gold-nugget-formation-in-quartz-75928
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