Framing Black Labor: On Archives and Mine Dancing in South African Gold Mines, 1950–1970

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 79-99
Author(s):  
Doria E. Charlson
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Tourist Attraction ◽  
African Culture ◽  
Black Labor ◽  
Gold Mines ◽  
Black South African ◽  
Migrant Laborers ◽  
South African Gold

Promoted as a tourist attraction to highlight the benevolent treatment of black migrant laborers at South African gold mines, mine dance performances by workers became a symbol of both “authentic” preindustrial African culture and, paradoxically, the progress made towards industrializing the nation. Excavating both state-sponsored, industrial archives and the photographs of black South African Ernest Cole enables a reframing of the ways dance was mobilized and extracted during apartheid.

Spatial variation in stress in seismogenic zones in South African gold mines

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
H. Ogasawara ◽  
A. Ishida ◽  
K. Sugimura ◽  
Y. Yabe ◽  
S. Abe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Variation ◽  
South African ◽  
Gold Mines ◽  
South African Gold

Geographies of Consumption: A Commodity-Chain Approach

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Hartwick
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Commodity Chain ◽  
Commodity Chains ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Gold Mines ◽  
Gold Jewelry ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Chain Analysis ◽  
Material Reality ◽  
South African Gold

Recent media and political events illustrate some links between consumption and production. The author explores these links through the concept of commodity chains. This concept has been partially developed in the literature, and an attempt is made to specify this further by means of the illustration of gold. The message is that the ‘geographies of consumption’ literature is insufficient by itself but becomes stronger when joined with a materialist commodity-chain analysis. The author moves from a deconstruction of the images of men and women in gold advertisements, at the consumption end, to the various places of production, beginning with Italian gold jewelry factories, then South African gold mines and apartheid, and third Lesotho, where Basotho men migrate to South African gold mines leaving behind ‘gold widows‘. The material reality of these gold widows stands in contrast to the ‘gold windows' of Tiffany's and the images of women and men in advertisements for gold. The author opines that this sort of analysis necessitates a politics of consumption in which the two ends are reconnected; and that this could lead to a new ‘commercial geography‘.

The seismogenic zones of an M2.0-5.5 earthquakes successfully recovered in deep South African gold mines: the outcomes and the follow-up plan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Ogasawara ◽  
Bennie Liebenberg ◽  
Yasuo Yabe ◽  
Yuki Yokoyama ◽  
Tetsuro Hirono ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Host Rock ◽  
Critical Section ◽  
Laboratory Work ◽  
Seismogenic Zone ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Normal Faulting ◽  
Gold Mines ◽  
South African Gold

<p>This paper reports on the outcomes of the ICDP drilling into seismogenic zones of M2.0-5.5 earthquakes in South African (SA) gold mines (DSeis; 2017-2018), the follow-up work in 2019, and planned post-drilling activity from 2020 onwards.</p><p>In deep SA gold mines, seismogenic zones evolve ahead of thin tabular excavations. Normal faulting prevails because mining enhances the vertical maximum principal stress. At 1km depth at the Cooke 4 mine, we elucidated the evolution of the seismogenic zone with a dense acoustic emission network. In 2017, we successfully recovered both the metasedimentary host rock (mainly quartzite ~2.8 Ga) and samples of the seismogenic zone with well-preserved fracture systems using a triple-tube (BQ 1.5m-long). Subsequent laboratory work investigated critical characteristics of rock-rock friction.</p><p>In 2014, an M5.5 earthquake, the largest in deep South African gold mining districts, took place. Dense seismic networks, both on the Earth’s surface and at 2-3 km depth, showed that this event was atypical because it was a sinistral event on an unknown geological structure below the mining horizon in West Rand Group strata (~2.9 Ga). Inversion and back-projection of the ground motion showed complicated but unilateral rupture propagation. The densest population of aftershocks shows a sharp upper cut-off and streaks, both dipping to the south.  Its centroid lies outside the significant main rupture zone. In 2017, we commenced drilling at a site at 2.9km depth in a tension quadrant of the sinistral faulting, several hundreds of meters above the upper fringe of the M5.5 aftershock plane. During 2017-2018, we drilled holes, of a total length of 1.6 km. With a 1.5m NQ triple-tube for the critical section, we could recover the fault materials and the host rock with the seismic fracture system well preserved. Borehole logging and core curation in SA and laboratory work at international organizations, including Kochi Core Center Japan (KCC), followed during 2017-2019. With the geology data mapped on the mining horizons and the legacy seismic reflection data as additional information, the following picture is emerging: (a) transition of the stress regime from normal-faulting to sinistral-faulting; (b) stress localization; (c) heterogeneity in the aftershock distribution as well as the segregation between the main rupture and aftershocks, potentially correlated with significant heterogeneity in mechanical properties; (d) a role of an altered lamprophyre dike; (e) hypersaline brine with salinity even higher than measurements at other deep gold mines, potentially as old as brine found at Kidd Creek mine, Canada; and (f) abiogenic gas and organic carbon.</p><p>These data sets allow us to address questions in earthquake and deep-life sciences raised in the ICDP Science Plan (2014-2019). In 2019, the ICDP Executive Committee described DSeis as a ‘successful’ project. To integrate and discuss the outcomes in greater depth and plan additional follow-up work, we are planning a post-drilling workshop in November 2020 or January 2021 at KCC before we return the imported critical section of the core to South Africa.</p>

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