Gumbu Mine, Musina Local Municipality, Vhembe District Municipality, Limpopo, South Africai

Regional Level Types
Gumbu Mine	Mine
Musina Local Municipality	Municipality
Vhembe District Municipality	Municipality
Limpopo	Province
South Africa	Country

The area is underlain by remnants of the Messina Formation in Archaean granite and gneiss. The Messina Formation, which probably belongs to
the Swaziland System, consists of magnetite-quartzites, quartzites, dolomitic marbles and calc-silicate rocks, all of which may in places contain minor amounts of graphite. These metasediments are interlayered with granite gneiss, garnet-graphite gneiss and graphitic gneiss, the last containing the ore-bodies which are being mined. There are three zones of graphitic gneiss, all of which have been prospected by trenches and vertical shafts but only one, the northern zone, is being mined. The gneiss is schistose and varies in colour from light to dark grey depending on the amount of graphite it contains. It crushes easily, breaking down to quartz, graphite and secondary minerals such as sericite, talc, opal, calcite, epidote and oxides of iron. The graphite occurs disseminated as separate flakes less than 0.01 mm in thickness and up to 4 mm in diameter, as well as nodules of aggregated flakes and powder.

The ore-body which is being mined strikes approximately north-east and dips to the south-east at 70° to 85°. It has been mined along strike for some 100 m and to a depth of about 50 m. Its thickness varies between 15 m and 20 m to a depth of 40 m but decreases to 7 m at a depth of 50 m. The average graphite content of the ore is about 30%. The lode is stoped from three levels connected to an adit. Water for mining and milling is drawn from the Limpopo River.

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References