Tati Goldfields

The Tati Goldfields are a mineral-rich band in Botswana and Zimbabwe in southern Africa. The band runs approximately 130 kilometres (81 mi) long by 5 kilometres (3 mi) wide, and crosses the Tati River. It is the southernmost of the gold-bearing bands in the Archaen greenstone (schist) belts of Zimbabwe. It is estimated that between 1866 and 1963 over 200,000 ounces of gold were produced from mines in the Tati Goldfields.^[1]

History

The area along the Tati River was pit mined by the Bakalanga before the arrival of Europeans.^[2] It may have been one of the sources of wealth for the Great Zimbabwe empire (c. 1200 to 1450).^[3]^[4]

In 1866, Karl Mauch discovered the Tati goldfield, making it the first one discovered by Europeans in southern Africa.^[5] This led to the first South African gold rush.^[6]

Geology

The gold mineralization occurs in quartz veins, intruded into the volcano-sedimentary rocks of the Tati greenstone belt. Other economic minerals occur including nickel and copper.^[7] The major formation is the Selkirk Formation which is up to 1000 meters thick. The Selkirk is composed mostly of redeposited dacite and rhyolite, with some darker volcanics, and minor quartzites and quartzitic schists.^[7]

Notes and references

^ "Mupane: A Gold Mine in Botswana: Mupane Information". Mining Atlas. Bateleur Limited. Archived from the original on 30 July 2018.
^ See Wallis, J. P. R. (1946). The Northern Goldfields Diaries of Thomas Baines. London: Chatto & Windus.
^ Huffman, Thomas N. (1974). "Ancient mining and Zimbabwe". Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. 74 (6): 238–242.
^ Huffman, Thomas N.; Vogel, John C. (1991). "The chronology of Great Zimbabwe". The South African Archaeological Bulletin. 46 (154): 61–70. doi:10.2307/3889086. JSTOR 3889086.
^ Harger, Harold S. (1934). "Early Transvaal Geological Map by Carl Mauch". Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa. 37: 1–4.
^ Eriksson, Patrick G.; Altermann, W.; Förtsch, E. B. (1995). "Transvaal Sequence and Bushveld Complex". Mineralium Deposita. 30 (2): 85–88. doi:10.1007/BF00189337.
^ ^a ^b Maier, W. D.; et al. (2007). "The composition of magmatic Ni–Cu–(PGE) sulfide deposits in the Tati and Selebi-Phikwe belts of eastern Botswana" (PDF). Mineralium Deposita. 43 (1): 37–60. doi:10.1007/s00126-007-0143-5. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 February 2008.