From Jim McClarin:

Re: Our gold was a crash delivery from space, study finds (Dec. 10): Bottke, Walker, et al. are probably right about the splattered cores of a few large impactors leaving gold deposits on Earth. However, Earth's own core may prove to be a source as well. Such a large iron core as Earth's may have resulted from a larger body striking dead-on, slamming through the crust and mantel and seriously impacting the core, spewing out core fragments from both but mostly melding together with the upper layers closing in and reassuming their spheroid shape. Another possibility is that a much larger body struck our planet a glancing blow, knocking off a spray of asteroid chunks, including part of Earth's core, some of which could have settled back to the surface of the damaged planet. Both actions were claimed to have happened in our solar system's youth by whoever initiated the "creation myth" of the Anunnaki, gods of the ancient Sumerians. A portion of the debris was said to have remained as a "necklace" between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter while the largest chunk, along with its largest moon, was knocked into a new orbit between Mars and Venus.