Banket, a

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

term, applied to the beds of

auriferous The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue giv ...

conglomerate, chiefly occurring in the

Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...

gold-fields. The name was given to these beds from their resemblance to a pastry, known in Dutch as ''banket'', resembling almond hard-bake. The word is the same as banquet, and is derived ultimately from bank or bench, meaning table-feast, hence applied to any delicacy or to various kinds of confectionery, a use now obsolete in English.

References

Ore deposits Afrikaans words and phrases South African English Culture of South Africa Geology of South Africa Mining in South Africa Mining terminology {{SouthAfrica-stub