Perot now filled with gold

By Taylor Mayad

With a combined weight of more than 110 pounds, two exquisite and rare gold pieces originally unearthed in Australia are now on display at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. The largest piece — dubbed the Dragon’s Lair (pictured) — tips the scales at 63 pounds making it one of the largest and most remarkable specimens to come out of the richest gold finds in Australia. This is the first time Dragon’s Lair has been on view at any museum. Its smaller lustrous companion — known as the Ausrox Nugget — weighs in at a whopping 51.29 pounds and is about the size of a basketball. 

Dragon’s Lair hails from Western Australia and was discovered in 2018 at the Royal Nickel Corporation’s Beta Hunt Mine in Kambalda, a gold field, which has produced more than 20 million troy ounces (roughly 1.3 million pounds) of gold since 1897. 

Initially a large boulder of quartz encasing gold, the enormous Dragon’s Lair emerged through the painstaking work of expert technicians at the Collector’s Edge in Colorado. 

The “rock doctors” began the cleaning process by envisioning how the gold lay within the large boulder. After X-rays and hours of visual scanning, an approach was designed to best bring out the piece’s aesthetics. Taking place over hundreds of hours, the process involved several cycles of incising, acid etching and iron removal.

Dragon’s Lair will be on exhibit next to the Ausrox Nugget in the Perot Museum’s Lyda Hill Gems and Minerals Hall. 

The Perot Museum is located at 2201 N. Field Street in Dallas. For details and visitor information, go to perotmuseum.org.