The TauTona Mine, formerly Western Deep Levels No.3 Shaft, is a

gold mine Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to more comple ...

located in the West Wits gold field west of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

. 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 ho ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. At approximately deep, it is home to the world's second deepest mining operation, rivalled only by the Mponeng Gold Mine, formerly Western Deep Levels No.1 Shaft. TauTona was temporarily closed in 2018. The mine was one of the three Western Deep Levels mines. TauTona neighbours its sister Mponeng and Savuka mines, with which there are interconnections underground on various levels. To the north-east lie the Driefontein shafts, which were developed around the same time by Goldfields. Ore from TauTona and Savuka were formerly processed at the Savuka Gold Plant. Mponeng, the newest of the three, was built with its own gold plant. All three were owned by

AngloGold Ashanti AngloGold Ashanti Limited is a South African gold mining company, with global operations. With a diverse portfolio of cooperation, projects, and exploration activities, AngloGold Ashanti was formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold and the ...

until they were purchased by Harmony Gold in 2020. Savuka was placed on care and maintenance in 2017, but continued as a pumping shaft to dewater the region to enable mining at active shafts, until it was finally closed in 2024. TauTona closed in 2018, but was re-opened in 2020 as part of the Mponeng operations. It is now known as Mponeng Mine: Carbon Leader Operations. TauTona Shaft remains in commission, but Carbon Leader reef mined at TauTona is trammed underground to Mponeng, where it is hoisted to surface and processed at the Mponeng Plant. The Savuka Plant continues in operation only as a tailings retreatment facility. Its 'front end' (milling) has been mothballed. TauTona mine was built by the

Anglo American Corporation Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from 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 of British de ...

. Shaft sinking operations started in 1956 and the 2km-deep main surface shaft was commissioned in 1961, serving all levels down to 66L. The name TauTona means "great lion" in the

Setswana language Tswana, also known by its native name Setswana, is a Bantu language indigenous to Southern Africa and spoken by about 8.2 million people. It is closely related to the Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalagadi ...

. The mine commenced ore production in 1962. It was one of the most efficient mines in South Africa, with attractively high gold grades, and remained in continuous operation even during periods when the price of gold was low. Initially, mining at TauTona concentrated on the Venterdorp Contact Reef (VCR), which has almost all been mined out. However, the Carbon Leader Reef (CLR) , which is located several hundred metres in the footwall of the VCR, remains relatively untouched, and forms the basis of TauTona's new lease on life. CLR mining is underway between 112 Level and 120 Level, all off the TV Shaft. Two more sub-shafts were added to bring the mine to its current depth. The secondary sub-shaft serves from 66L down to 100L, and the Tertiary Vertical Shaft (TV Shaft) extends down to 120L, 3,595m below collar. The mine had some of tunnels, and employed around 5,600 miners at its peak. Current staffing levels are far lower. 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 virgin rock temperatures in the mine can rise to life-threatening levels. Refrigeration equipment is 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 language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (collo ...

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 shaft conveyances that transported the workers from the surface to the bottom travelled at 16 metres per second (36 mph / 58 km/h) so together with travelling in man carriages operating in the haulages, the journey to the working stopes and development ends could take over an hour from the surface. The mine has been featured on the ''

MegaStructures A megastructure (or macrostructure) is a very large artificial object, although the limits of precisely how large vary considerably. Some apply the term to any especially large or tall building. Some sources define a megastructure as an enorm ...

'' 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 Enter ...

. Current planning reveals a realistic Life Of Mine (LOM) on the CLR mining horizon to 2029, excluding any extension. The foreseeable LOM potential is to 2035, including shaft pillar mining. In the 2008 financial year, there were 7 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

Tau Tona mine (ZAF-00566)
''Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States 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