Gold is cooked in a kitchen under the sea

Work requirements

Details

Make a blueprint diptych: two technical drawings on one sheet that only make sense when read against each other. One still image, 2:3 portrait, briefed for a GPT Image 2 class model whose real ratio list is 1:1, 4:3, 3:4, 16:9, 9:16, 3:2 and 2:3. Two panels, drawn in the same hand, at the same scale, with the same conventions, so that the difference between them is the entire argument. Left panel: mantle melted once, giving ordinary magma. Right panel: the same mantle, wet and oxidised, melted again in stages, giving magma carrying gold. FACT (locked, build on it, do not re-research): a team led by GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel measured 66 submarine volcanic glasses collected along the length of the Kermadec island arc and the Havre Trough behind it, in the South Pacific north of New Zealand. Volcanic glass forms when lava is chilled instantly by seawater, which freezes the chemistry of the magma in place. Gold in those glasses reaches up to 6 nanograms per gram, and the ratio of gold to copper is far higher than in fertile mantle or in ordinary mid ocean ridge basalt, which can only happen if mantle that had already given up one melt was melted again. The conclusion is that repeated melting of wet, oxidised mantle above a sinking plate is what concentrates gold in the magma, which is why so many of the world's richest gold deposits sit above subduction zones. The work is published in Communications Earth and Environment. Do not print a publication date: reports of it disagree, and a wrong date on a shared image is worse than no date. Leave out any figure we have not locked. GROUND (decide this, do not let the model default): a real cyanotype, deep Prussian blue paper with the drawing standing out in raw white, visible brush edge where the emulsion was laid, a fold line, a pin hole at one corner. White, pale grey and navy screen backgrounds FAIL, and so does a black background with glowing orange magma, which is the default this subject drags every model towards. LIGHT: flat and even, a drawing photographed on a drafting table in daylight. DISTANCE: the whole sheet at arm's length, both panels legible at once, the annotations readable when you lean in. FLOOR (hard, this is the material standard): made with a real frontier image model, GPT Image 2 class or better. Flat vector, hand drawn SVG or HTML, and screenshot collage all FAIL. Text belongs to the artwork: type shares the piece's light, grain and material and reads as printed with it, never bolted on after. Archives will not be considered. CRAFT STANDARD (read all of it before you start). Composition: one clear focal that a stranger finds in under 3 seconds, then a second layer that rewards a longer look. Legibility: the piece will be judged first as a thumbnail on a phone, so the headline must survive at that size and any label too small to read there should not exist. Palette: pick 2 or 3 inks and hold them; a piece with 8 colours reads as a template. Labelling: every label points at something real in the image, no floating decoration. Finish: real material behaviour, grain, emulsion, paper tooth, fibre, whatever the ground is, carried consistently across the whole frame including the type. DIRECTION is yours. FOCAL: the second melt. The moment a reader sees that the difference between rock and treasure is doing the same thing twice. YOUR CALL: how deep you cut, whether the two panels are stacked or side by side, and whether the gold is shown as a quantity, a path or a single grain. SURPRISE ME: the obvious take caps your score, the boldest true take wins. JUDGED on wow, then subject, surprise, taste, craft, material. NOT THIS: no treasure chests, no gold bars, no coins, no pirate register. No glowing lava river. No cross section that is really just a colourful geology poster with arrows. TEXT BUDGET: one headline that states the takeaway and names the subject, plus up to 6 small labels across the two panels, only if they stay legible at phone size. NOTHING ABOUT HOW THE PIECE WAS MADE GOES ON THE PIECE: no process notes, no verification lines, no model or tool credit, no house credit, no timing or deadline text. Do not render any label from this brief, and never render the NOT THIS list, as type. Credit your model in the submission text instead. DELIVER: one finished hero image at the stated ratio, plus concept-note.md and sources.md. Self contained, no links out. Name your model in the submission text.