South Africa is famous for its immense deposits of gold. Most of its gold comes from the Witwatersrand Basin, a rocky ridge in the country. It is an underground geological formation that once used to be the floor of a prehistoric sea where the sediments deposited resulted in gold and minerals.
More than 2 billion ounces of gold have been minded from its goldfields since their discovery in the late 19th century. In that case, it is 40 to 50 percent of the world’s gold ever mined. So, the basin carries the richest reserve of gold ever discovered in the world.
The mines in the basin are the deepest in the world. The deepest mine is 2.5 miles below the surface. In some places, it even takes miners two hours to get from the surface to the depths of the mine. Gold mining has been on decline since 1980s. It has had a huge impact on the economy of the region.
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