In the rocky hills of northern Canada, companies are scathing the landscape in search of the next gold fortune. One minerals exploration company has found a strip of land that is showing anywhere from .2 ounces to 9.8 ounces per ton of the yellow metal. And make no mistake, 9.8 ounces of gold is simply HUGE.

When the New York Stock Exchange needed a computer operating system to handle its vast amount of daily transactions, it did not look to the perennial tech-bellwethers like Apple or Google.