Swaziland

Geological Survey and Mines Department
Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy
P.O. Box 57, Mbabane, H100
Phone: +268-2404-5840
Fax: +268-2404-4330 
geoswz_dir@realnet.co.sz
http://www.gov.sz


CIA Factbook
Political rights and civil liberties (Freedom House)
Travel and accommodation

The contribution of mining to total exports in 2010 amounted to 1.5%

Swaziland Mining News


Source: CIA Factbook



Legend


Geology

The geology of Swaziland is dominated in the western and central part of the country by Precambrian (Archean) units belonging to the Swaziland and Pongola Supergroups and younger Neo-Archean granitoid intrusive suites located at the eastern edge of the Kaapval Craton. In the eastern part of the country along the border area with Mozambique, the basement units are overlapped by volcanosedimentary Karroo sequences. The oldest known unit is probably the Ngwane Gneiss which is succeeded by the tripartite Swaziland Supergroup that crop out within the Baberton Greenstone Belt in the northwest of the country.

Mining

Swaziland possesses resources of asbestos, coal, clay, and cassiterite, with minor gold and diamond deposits, as well as quarry stone, and talc but mining has declined in importance in recent years with only anthracite coal and quarry stone mines remaining active. Ferrovanadium production ceased in 2005. In 2007 Swaziland was fourth largest coal producer in the African continent but with a 27.5 per cent decrease in output in 2008 it has now slipped to sixth in the rankings. Swaziland has an excellent potential for ceramic minerals, ie. kaolin,talc, silica and a variety of clays.
(Source: http://www.eisourcebook.org/)

Maps and images

Click HERE for an overview

Gold in Swaziland

Gold Home

  • There is no known gold mining industry, but the Irish company Kenmore Resources had two gold licences at Niassa(?), where test drills in 1996 inferred resources of 200,000 oz.
  • Between 1996 and 1998, SouthernEra Resources explored the Daisy and Piggs Peak gold areas of northern Swaziland. Work included ground magnetics, geochemical soil sampling and the drilling of 9 diamond drill holes (1500m) for hydrothermal gold targets.
  • Dwyka Diamonds Ltd (Australian, DWYKF.PK) announced on March 7, 2007, that it had signed a legally-binding Memorandum of Understanding with the shareholder of Swazi Gold Ventures (Pty) Ltd , the holder of 90% of the issued shares in Swaziland Gold (Pty) Ltd , which in turn owns the Swazigold project in Swaziland. The project is located in the Archaean Barberton Greenstone Belt that straddles the border between Mpumalanga Province, South Africa and Swaziland. Swazigold’s project area is 425km2. The licence area comprises more than 40km of strike length containing multiple mineralised structures and more than 40 gold showings. Historic detailed drilling has been restricted to the Wyldsdale, Lomati and Daisy prospects where cumulate drilling by previous owners is in excess of 13,000 metres. Based on encouraging exploration results, a 2,000m diamond-core drilling program had started at the end of 2007 on the Daisy, Kobolondo and Lufafa prospects. Three boreholes had been planned for the Kobolondo prospect to test a 600m strike length of a mineralised shear zone.
References


Economic geology of energy sources

Economic geology of nonmetal deposits

Economic geology of ore deposits

Economic geology, general

Economic geology, general, economics

Economic geology, geology of nonmetal deposits

Economic geology, geology of ore deposits