The TauTona Mine or Western Deep No.3 Shaft, was a

gold mine Gold Mine may refer to: * Gold Mine (board game) *Gold Mine (Long Beach), an arena *"Gold Mine", a song by Joyner Lucas from the 2020 album ''ADHD Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characteri ...

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

. At approximately deep, it was home to the world's second deepest mining operation, rivalled only by the

Mponeng Gold Mine Mponeng is a gold mine in South Africa's Gauteng province. Previously known as Western Deep Levels #1 Shaft, the underground and surface works were commissioned in 1987. It extends over below the surface,. and is considered to be one of the most ...

, but was closed in 2018. The mine was one of the three Western Deep Levels mines of the West Wits gold field west of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

. The mine is near the town of

Carletonville Carletonville is a town in Gauteng and the seat of the Merafong City Local Municipality in the West Rand District Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, just north of the richest gold-mining area in the world. At 3,749 m, Western Deep Levels h ...

. TauTona neighbours the

Mponeng Mponeng is a gold mine in South Africa's Gauteng province. Previously known as Western Deep Levels #1 Shaft, the underground and surface works were commissioned in 1987. It extends over below the surface,. and is considered to be one of the most ...

and Savuka mines and they share processing abilities. All three were owned by

AngloGold Ashanti AngloGold Ashanti Limited is a global gold mining company. It was formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold and the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. It is now a global gold producer with 21 operations on four continents. The company is listed ...

until Savuka was closed in 2017, TauTona in 2018 and Mponeng was purchased by Harmony Gold in 2020. The mine was built by the

Anglo American Corporation Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from, the Angles, England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people o ...

and its deep main shaft was sunk in 1957. The name TauTona means "great lion" in the

Setswana language Tswana, also known by its native name , and previously spelled Sechuana in English, is a Bantu language spoken in Southern Africa by about 8.2 million people. It belongs to the Bantu language family within the Sotho-Tswana branch of Zone ...

. The mine began operation in 1962. It was one of the most efficient mines in South Africa and remained in continuous operation even during periods when the price of gold was low. Two secondary shafts were added to bring the mine to its current depth. The mine had some of tunnels and employs around 5,600 miners. The mine was a dangerous place to work, with an average of five miners dying in accidents each year. The mine is so deep that temperatures in the mine can rise to life-threatening levels. Air-conditioning equipment was used to cool the mine from down to a more tolerable . The rock face temperature reaches . By 2008, the mine reached underground. This made it the deepest mine in the world (at that time), surpassing the deep

East Rand Mine East Rand Proprietary Mines (ERPM) is a 125-year-old underground gold mining operation on the Witwatersrand Basin at Boksburg, to the east of Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, o ...

by a considerable margin. This new shaft extended the depth from its previous , with the intent of extending the mine's life to 2015. The lift cage that transported the workers from the surface to the bottom traveled at 16 metres per second (36 mph / 58 km/h) so together with traveling on horizontal trolleys the journey to the rock face could take up to 1 hour from the surface level. The mine has been featured on the '' MegaStructures'' television program produced by the

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney General ...

. In the 2008 financial year, there were seven fatal accidents at AngloGold Ashanti's West Wits operations in which 14 miners died, four of those at the TauTona mine.

Production

Production figures of the TauTona Mine were the following:

References

External links

Hücreli Aspiratör

''Secretariat of the

African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) is a group of countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific that was created by the Georgetown Agreement in 1975. Formerly known as African, Caribbean and Pacific Group o ...

website'' {{Authority control Gold mines in South Africa Underground mines in South Africa Buildings and structures in Gauteng AngloGold Ashanti Economy of Gauteng Non-renewable resource companies established in 1962 1962 establishments in South Africa