Stratiform gold mineralization in palaeosol and ironstone of early Proterozoic age,Transvaal Sequence,South Africa

An early Proterozoic palaeosol, developed on basalt and the basal part of an overlying transgressive marine sedimentary sequence, contains pyrite which is auriferous in places. The mineralization is stratiform and continuous over a distance of several hundred kilometres. Although this mineralization can be explained by a number of genetical models the author concluded that the mineralization took place during pedogenesis and/or diagenesis. Gold is considered to have been leached from the basalt and from the B horizon of the palaeosol by sulphide-rich groundwater and was then precipitated by the effect of the lowering of the HS^– activity. The latter is thought to have been caused by atmospheric oxidation and by reaction with Fe-rich leachate from the A horizon, and pyritization of pre-existing iron oxide minerals may also have contributed. It is concluded that a pedogenic gold protore may explain the origin of at least some of the gold of the Witwatersrand type of deposit.