Neil Phillips

In the article below, gold expert Neil Phillips surveys global mining stats and asks the question 'Where can I find gold?'. The piece was first published in the Sep / Oct 2021 edition of Exceed (The Magazine of the Pajero 4WD Club of Victoria, Australia).

It was a surprise to many when it was announced in September that Australia was now the world’s leading gold producer as of the first half of 2021. One needs to go back to 1903 for the last time Australia was in this position and that year was a combination of Kalgoorlie, Bendigo and many other mines actively producing and the Boer War in South Africa briefly but dramatically curtailing that country’s production. Before 1903, it was the 1850s when Victoria was the world’s greatest source of gold for a few years.

An early stamp battery on the Rand (Mining Survey 1986)

So where is all this Australian gold coming from? The total mined in Australia for the first half of 2021 was 157 tonnes of gold which was enough to overtake China’s reported 153 tonnes; for each country this equated to about 10 million ounces per year. That Australian gold is coming from over 100 mining operations with some being open pits and many being underground mines with declines starting from...

In the article below, gold expert Neil Phillips looks at the origins, growth & decline of the greatest goldfield on earth. He also hints at hopes of new discoveries. The article was first published in the The Australian Geologist, issue 200, page 21.

One quarter of the World’s gold has been mined from the Witwatersrand goldfields around Johannesburg in South Africa. At its peak in 1970, gold was the mainstay of the South African economy, the dominant export, and source of employment for 500,000 underground miners every day. Anecdotally, those miners supported an average of ten others in extended families in South Africa and surrounding countries. Unfortunately, the last fifty years have been one of constant decline in annual Witwatersrand gold production to now be under 10 percent of its peak.

History of Witwatersrand Basin gold production rate (Christopher J. H. Hartnady)

Much has been written about the discovery of the Witwatersrand and its national and global impact. The discovery itself was early in 1886 by George Harrison, and likely in February of that year. In mid-1886 just months after his discovery, Harrison described himself to the State Secretary as having long experience as an Australian gold digger and added his opinion...