KNYSNA | PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Modern mining exploration means, including satellite photography, infrared analysis, geophysical survey techniques as well as ground penetrating radar, and modern mechanical exploration drilling, remote electronic detonators and blasting, plus huge excavation abilities.
A local consortium of geologists and mining engineers has teamed-up with a supportive Australian exploration company.
Their aim is to use new technology to re-explore the Millwood and Karatara river areas with a view to ‘re-igniting’ the fuse of the gold mining industry in the Knysna area, which spluttered-out in the late 1800’s.
Their spokeswoman and Public Relations Manager, Ms Qortzo Reefilo, daughter of a prominent politician, was quoted as saying, “we see the environmental impact assessment (EIA) being simple because the access roads were built for the mines many years ago, plus mining has already occurred in the area. So the public cannot say it is a new development”.
“The Mineral Resources and Development Act allows for existing mines to be easily restarted”, she said.
She also said that “modern mining, although on a much bigger scale because of dynamite and machines, can be done better for the environment”.
Background and history
It was in 1876 that a gold nugget weighing 26.4 grams was found by James Hooper in the Karatara River near the Karawater causeway.
Gold is priced in ounces and 1 ounce is 28.35 grams. So, this little nugget in today’s price would be R1800.00.
Following this discovery, further exploration occurred over the next several years by Charles Osborn, Thomas Kitto and Edward Dunn.
Even though they were not hopeful for a significant gold discovery, other than some alluvial gold, a gold rush occurred with thousands of prospectors buzzing through the forests and streams, like politicians over a pot of honey.
Some 3200 ounces of gold was mined (R5.7 million). By 1886, the Millwood gold fields were up and running and several shafts were excavated, mostly by hand.
By the late 1880s, the accessible gold had run out and the miners moved onto richer honey pots in the Witwatersrand, where gold had been found in large quantities in the early 1900s.
Planned Knysna exploration
The CEO for the exploration consortium, called African Rainbow Diggers (ARD), Mr Bennie Digo, who has more than 25 years of gold mining experience throughout the World with abandoned mines, was interviewed by KPH.
It was revealed that he has been doing some undercover field exploration work, with much ‘big-foot’ stomping through the forests and streams in both the Karatara and Homtini River Catchments.
Apparently, there was an area where gold was previously found. “This was made easy because of Covid lockdown and most people did not know I was scouting around”, he said.
He is of the opinion that not all the quartz veins which would be associated with the gold were found. “Prospectors years ago”, he says, “Did not have the modern exploration methods that we do today. We will be able to much easier drill and blast into the quartz veins to get sufficiently large samples to do the necessary high tech laboratory analysis”.
“Extraction methods using cyanide and other chemicals are a lot better in separating the gold particles from the rock”, said Mrs Galena Lode, a geochemist and one of the local investors and backers of the exploration consortium.
Their hopes and ideas tie-in with pronouncements by Mr Gustav Duft who in 1889, noted that “the gold is in oxidised cavities and can only be separated from the sulphide ore by more complicated metallurgical operations”.
Duft concluded at the time that “in future the mining operations at Knysna have to be directed to greater depths, where the lodes contain auriferous and argentiferous sulphides”. “So there is hope that with deep shaft and open cast mine pits we will make Knysna again the mining capital of the Cape”, said Mrs Lode.
KPH was told that the Knysna Business and Tourism Forum do not know whether to be overjoyed by this new development, or whether to throw in the pick and ask National Parks to ban all future mining from the forest areas in favour of tourism.
They hope to get comment from Tourism Minister Ms Lindy Sasueloo. However, one of the other directors of the consortium, Ms Nowand Mantasha, who is rumoured to be related to a minerals Minister, says that, ‘like my hubbie, I believe it is not right for the colonisers to stop ARD from following James Bond and also getting Goldfingers”.
Local geologists in Knysna and Sedgefield were asked for comment.
Messrs Kershore, Morras, Cam Klerk, Skoen, Bargeman, Vonberk, Manz, Hayns, Doe, Ricksome, Gins, Trewik, Rollingston, et al. said that they are not that keen on the idea as they say they came here to retire and get away from rocks and mines. They would much rather that some forests get cleared for more vineyards, to make cheaper local wine. Hopefully this is done before 1st April 2023.
Gotcha! Happy April Fool's Day! The author, Ritchie Morris, is a semi-retired earth and water scientist living inland of Sedgefield developing a free-spirited descriptive imagination driven by fresh air, fine friends, beautiful views and a well-stocked wine cellar.
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