GOLD!! Gold I tell ya!

My friend Chele and I spent Thursday at the Cincinnati Museum Center to check the  exhibit “GOLD!” and the OMNIMAX  film “Under the SEA”. The Gold exhibit was huge. Plenty of samples of gold in it’s natural state including a formation called crystallized gold. Which I had never heard of. Different examples of coinage from ancient civilizations, beautiful artifacts from India, Asia, & Central and South America (that survived Spanish melting). There were some large gold bars recovered from American shipwrecks from the mid 1800s. The coins looked as if they were minted yesterday. Some of the displays were of gold plated items, so they had Emmys, Oscars, KY Derby trophies. One of the neatest awards were Olympic gold medals won by local athletes at the ‘72, ‘88, and ‘08 games. Some interesting info from the show; 78% of gold is used for jewelry, 12% for electronics, medical and dental, and only 10% is used for financial transactions. It takes 30 tons of oar to get 1oz of gold. Gold is so malleable you can get 7000 sheets the thickness of a dime.  They didn’t allow pictures, but I managed to sneak the 1st shot and lifted the 2nd from the website. 

The movie was beautiful showing creatures mostly from the Great Barrier Reef. Sea lions, sea snakes, sea dragons, whales and cuttlefish. Big screen and beautiful movie.