"Gold From the Sea", a web page at [
link to www.goldfever.com] addresses the issue and includes a bibliography with 27 references. Good luck with it, Anna.
My wild guess based on hints in the literature is that a microbe or nanomachine will be engineered which can bioaccumulate gold. If such a creature could concentrate gold even to 1 ppm, that would make the concept a hundred times more practical; if it could concentrate gold to 100 ppm it would be 10,000 times more concentrated than seawater. We live at the cusps of genetic and micromachine revolution, so I think it will happen.
Have a read of the above link, plus this one -
[
link to www.finishing.com]
Speaking in simple terms.
If we know that applying A to B results in C, then in many circumstances, taking C from B will yield A.
Make sense?
If a nano bot or engineered lifeform was developed to undertake a specific job, but an unexpected 'input' [such as a charged submarine, covered in D.D] made that lifeform mutate and produce nano gold from sea water, further unravelling the DNA of the created lifeform and reprogramming it, creating a self perpetuating cascade event.
Couple that with an endless supply of energy to keep the process flowing.
As a completely alien life form, anything it does would be considered terraforming 'its' environment. The area it lives in is being changed by it.
But does it have any intent behind it? Is it sentient? Or is it simply a cascading reaction?
Given the failure to contain said cascade, could 'others' step in to attempt to change its course, via. technologies curently outside our realm of understanding, including contact with entities greater than we can imagine, including planetary conciousnes, and ask for help?
I have a few theories I'm working on at present, this being one in the vein (vane LOL) of the original storyline.
