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Economic geology

Gold buried by oxygen

Nature Geoscience volume 8, pages 170–171 (2015)Cite this article

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The Witwatersrand Basin in South Africa contains extraordinary amounts of gold. Thermodynamic calculations suggest that the gold may have accumulated there in response to a perfect storm of conditions available only during the Archaean.

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Figure 1: The Archaean biogeochemistry of gold and the Witwatersrand gold deposit.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fabrice Gaillard is in the Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orléans, Université d'Orléans-BRGM, 45071 Orléans CEDEX 2, France,

    Fabrice Gaillard

  2. Yoann Copard is in the Morphodynamique Continentale et Cotière Laboratory, Université de Rouen, 76821 Mont Saint Aignan, France.,

    Yoann Copard

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  1. Fabrice Gaillard
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  2. Yoann Copard
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Correspondence to Fabrice Gaillard or Yoann Copard.

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Gaillard, F., Copard, Y. Gold buried by oxygen. Nature Geosci 8, 170–171 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2347

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