Tevin A Jones

Since South Africa is considered as a world leader in gold production and that a great number of gold mines can be found within the country, it is without a doubt that the world's deepest gold mines are found here as well. All of these mines have reached a depth of more than 3000 meters and are still being gradually pushed even deeper through the aid of technology improvements.

Although there are also some other goldmines on other countries, South Africa stands out as the leading producer of gold throughout the world. The country was found out to have the richest gold resources compared to other countries with gold mines in them. Generally, about two thirds of the world's total production of gold came from South Africa.

All over the world, there are only a few known countries where gold can be mined and one of them is South Africa which is known as one of the world's leading producers of gold. And it was through these gold mines that the city of Johannesburg was established which is now considered as one of the world's largest metropolitan areas and is the biggest city of South Africa with the fastest growing economy.

Basically, there are two main approaches in extracting gold out of the Earth's crust which are through placer mining and hard rock mining. Placer mining is the most typical approach used in the early gold rushes that took place in the human history. However, such approach is still widely used today in the mining industry.

For many centuries, gold has been highly regarded by various civilizations and prominent leaders and rulers of their time because of its medicinal and healing properties. In ancient Egypt, gold mask was believed to be one of Cleopatra's greatest secrets for her captivating and unparalleled beauty. Rome, on the other hand, had gold salves which were used as a main form of treatment for various skin diseases.

All of these are because of the various gold mines all over the world. But the greatest producer of them all is the gold mining complex located in the area of Witwatersrand, South Africa. To date, almost half of the world's total production of gold come from the mines of South Africa making the country as the leading gold exporter of today.

Apart from the usual fields that emphasize the beauty of gold, the metal is also highly appreciated in other forms of art such as embroidery. It is widely known as goldwork wherein the use of metal thread in the art of embroidery is emphasized with great creativity and skills. For more than 2000 years, the art of goldwork has long existed in human history and has been known to have originated in Asia.

Since the dawn of ancient civilizations, tons of gold have been mined out of the Earth's crust. All in all, man has extracted almost 200,000 metric tons of gold out of the Earth's crust. And the greatest number came from South Africa which was renowned as world leader in gold production for more than a century.

For most people, gold's importance is seen only in the field of jewelry and finance. But what a lot of people don't know is that, the said metal has a long line of purposes and continues to become a part of various things through time. And as man advanced into the outer space, he also took gold along with him.

Gold has long existed in the history of human kind. It has played various important roles during the glorious days of ancient civilizations. But in most cases, gold was loved and adored by our ancient forefathers in the form of jewelry.