RE:"The deeper miners go, the richer the ore being uncovered."Included in Isky's post was this:
>South Africa has been the gold Mecca of the world since 1886, when the vast Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered in what now is the economic capital, Johannesburg. First, nuggets were easily recovered by hand..."
Sounds like purdy and comet wells. First the nuggets and then the fine gold down dip to the CRA hole. There were 2 conglomerate layers in the CRA hole (1700 and 2200 meters down). From reading all the posts, it looks like the nuggets were formed by tidal action near the shore lines of an circular bay 200 kilometers by 100 kilometers and fine gold settled to the bottom of the bay in deeper waters not effected by the tides. I don't know why gold would clump together at the shore line unless the plants mats and tides in shallow water caused it. Oxygen would spread thoughout the bay precipitating the gold in deeper waters but with no plants and no tides, it wouldn't clump. Just another theory to add to the mix.