The Witwatersrand Legacy

The Witwatersrand is a low, sedimentary range of hills, at an elevation of 1700—1800 meters above sea-level, which runs in an east-west direction through Gauteng in South Africa. The discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand led to the Second Boer War and ultimately the founding of South Africa. The Witwatersrand goldfields have more than a century of mining and has left the region littered with mounds of waste, known as tailings dumps, and underlain by a deep underground network of abandoned mine shafts, which are gradually filling with water. These mines as a result of highly efficient production methods may operate at depths in excess of 3000 meters where the specific geological conditions are suitable.