Gold Origin
The vast majority of the Earth's gold and other heavy metals are locked up in the core. Evidence from tungsten isotope studies indicates that most gold in the crust is derived from gold in the mantle which resulted from a meteorite bombardment some 3.9 billion years ago. The gold bearing meteorite event occurred million of years after the segregation of the earth's core.
The gold in the Witwatersrand Basin area was deposited in ancient river deltas, having been washed down from surrounding gold-rich greenstone belts to the north and west. Rhenium-osmium isotope studies indicate that the gold in those mineral deposits came from unusual three billion year old mantle-derived intrusions known as komatiite, present in the greenstone belts. The Vredefort Dome impact which lies within the basin and the nearby Bushveld Igneous Complex are both about a billion years younger than the interpreted age of the gold.
Read more about this topic: Witwatersrand Basin
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