But it is not easy to get at. Specks of gold embedded in the mountain rock can only be extracted by blasting and crushing the rock to powder.
VOA: standard.2010.04.22
And the process requires a significant amount of goldpowder, more gold than might be required initially to make a piece using more traditional methods.
After hitting the American market as a digestive aid, the green-gold powder worked its way into professional kitchens by the mid-1990s, and has gained a growing following.
Behind a tinted glass panel 18-carat goldpowder, laid down by a robot arm, sparkles as a laser fuses the metal into complex three-dimensional shapes, layer by layer.