We present determinations of the noble gas and Pb isotopic abundances and of K, Th, and U concentrations of native gold. Our results demonstrate that gold is an excellent carrier for crustal volatiles, but direct dating of gold using the U, Th-4He, 40K-40Ar, and U fission Xe methods was not successful for various reasons. The main significance of this work is the great sensitivity of gold for trapped gases as well as for gases that were produced in situ which gives the prospects of using gold and its fluid and solid inclusions for the study of paleogas composition. Numerous nuclear effects characterize the noble gas inventory of placer gold from Switzerland and Italy, vein gold from Italy, South Africa, and Venezuela, and lode gold from South Africa. The degassing patterns obtained by mass spectrometry show a low-temperature release of volatiles around 500 ¿C from fluid inclusions mainly in vein gold and a high-temperature release from solid inclusions and the gold itself. The low-temperature volatiles represent species that were trapped when the gold crystallized.

We investigated the following trapped species: the isotopes of He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe, and Pb, and the abundances of K, U, Th, H2O, and CO2. The crustal gases trapped by gold comprise 3He from 6Li(n,α)3H→β-→3He, 4He and 40Ar from the U, Th, and K decay, and Xe from 238U fission. We observe 4He/40Ar=3.9 for the radiogenic trapped gases of tertiary gold and a ratio of 1.4 for Archean gold. These ratios are consistent with the production ratios from U and K at the respective times and demonstrate that gold can be used as a sampler of ancient atmospheric gases. The concentrations of U and Th range from a few parts per billion to a few parts per million, and those of K and Pb range up to some tens of parts per million. The antiquity of trapped Pb is indicated by the Pb-Pb model age of about 3000 Ma for the lead extracted from vein gold and quartz of the Lily gold mine (South Africa). Gold also contains noble gases produced in situ by U, Th, and K decay. We obtained 4He up to the extremely high concentration of 6.8¿10-2 cm3 STP/g (STP: atmospheric pressure and 0 ¿C) for gold separated from a specimen of the Witwatersrand West Rand gold fields, indicating that this gold has a large U content. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1995