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Article: New Witwatersrand model. (Exploration).(oxygen-rich atmosphere 3 billion years ago)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Mining Journal
- Article date:
- January 18, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Mining Journal Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Research by scientists indicates that the primitive Earth may have had an oxygen-rich atmosphere as long ago as 3 billion years. According to the head of the Exploration and Mining Department at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Professor Neil Phillips, "these findings may have enormous economic implications in that we may simply have been looking in the wrong places for massive gold deposits like South Africa's Witwatersrand ... Or we may have actually found them -- and not recognised them for what they are, because we did not understand the processes involved in their formation".
Professor Phillips, together with ...