Gold production and the importance of exploration success: Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia

摘要

The Yilgarn Craton has emerged as one of the world's premier gold-producing areas and the site of some exceptional exploration successes since 1980. The Yilgarn Craton overtook the iconic Witwatersrand goldfields of South Africa in 2013 based on their annual gold productions. This revolution in Yilgarn production and discovery is not typical of other parts of the world. Furthermore, the success is not adequately explained by gold price, mining equipment or processing these are all useful, but they are global factors shared by all nations. Critical to becoming a leading gold producer has been the sustained exploration success in the Yilgarn Craton that has led to a pre-eminent Resource base. By not considering a global view, the magnitude and the importance of greenfields and subsequent brownfields exploration success has been under-estimated in summaries analyzing the Australian and Yilgarn gold industry.