According to standard fedora theory about the origin of metals all of the elements comprising the Earth are remnants of dead stars.
However I have heard a different theory, that the Earth is alive, and produces within itself all the range of metals it needs.
Sure, some if not quite a lot of the metals come from deposits of asteroids and space junk, and a lot of the metal on Earth is very ancient.
…but I think some of the metals on Earth are generated here, are not ancient at all, and that out of the Earth comes gold and silver and iron and so on that forms very recently.
So if I do understand this correctly, you could strip Earth of all of its Gold (such as in those theories about aliens coming over and harvesting it periodically), and Earth could then produce more gold (without it having to rain down in the form of asteroids). There is some kind of alchemical (and maybe chemical too) processes going on in the Earth that form the various metals.
Would I be correct to believe this or do all metals have to be generated first in a star?