  We present a Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) investigation of gold
deposited at the magnetite Fe3O4(001) surface at room temperature. This surface
forms a reconstruction with (\surd2\times\surd2)R45{\deg} symmetry, where pairs
of Fe and neighboring O ions are slightly displaced laterally, forming
undulating rows with 'narrow' and 'wide' adsorption sites. At fractional
monolayer coverages, single Au adatoms adsorb exclusively at the narrow sites,
with no significant sintering up to annealing temperatures of 400 {\deg}C. The
strong preference for this site is possibly related to charge and orbital
ordering within the first subsurface layer of the reconstructed Fe3O4(001)
surface. Because of their high thermal stability, the ordered Au atoms at
Fe3O4(001)- (\surd2\times\surd2)R45{\deg} could provide useful for probing the
chemical reactivity of single atomic species.
