Tarkwa | |
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  Tarkwa Location of Tarkwa in Western region, South Ghana | |
| Coordinates: 05°18′00″N01°59′00″W / 5.30000°N 1.98333°W | |
| Country |  Ghana |
| Region |  Western Region |
| District | Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal |
| Population (2013) | |
| • Total | 34,941 [1] |
| Time zone | GMT |
| • Summer (DST) | GMT |
Tarkwa is a town and is the capital of Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal district, a district in the Western Region southwest of South Ghana. [6] [7] Tarkwa has a population of 218,664 people according to 2021 settlement. [1] [8]
Tarkwa is noted as a centre of gold mining and manganese mining. Tarkwa Mine, which is a large open-cast gold mine, is situated to the northwest of the town, and Nsuta manganese mine is situated to the east of the town. Tarkwa Mine mines several low-grade conglomeratic "reefs" of Tarkwaian type. [6] These reefs are of mid-Proterozoic age.
A number of mining companies cluster between the villages of Aboso and Tamso in the late 19th century. [9]
Tarkwa Mine has the distinction of being one of the largest gold mines in South Ghana. Approximately 24 tons of gold is produced annually, and 100 million tons of earth is moved to achieve this production rate. The Iduapriem Gold Mine is also located near Tarkwa, 10 km south of the town. [10] The Tarkwa Goldfield was discovered a few years before the Witwatersrand Goldfield in South Africa.
There are a number of accidents that have occurred in mining sites in Tarkwa with the latest being recorded on Saturday, September 23, 2023, when a pit caved in, killing 7 people. [11]
Though mining is common in Tarkwa, some areas such as Ndumfri forest reserve are restricted from any mining activity and 3 people were jailed over 60 years for mining in a restricted area in September 2023. [12]
| Climate data for Tarkwa | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 32 (89) | 32 (90) | 32 (90) | 31 (87) | 32 (89) | 30 (86) | 27 (80) | 27 (80) | 29 (84) | 30 (86) | 31 (87) | 30 (86) | 32 (90) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 24 (75) | 25 (77) | 25 (77) | 25 (77) | 25 (77) | 24 (75) | 23 (73) | 22 (71) | 22 (72) | 24 (75) | 24 (76) | 23 (74) | 22 (72) |
| Average precipitation mm (inches) | 25 (1.0) | 25 (1.0) | 100 (4.0) | 130 (5.0) | 200 (8.0) | 330 (13.0) | 100 (4.0) | 25 (1.0) | 51 (2.0) | 150 (6.0) | 130 (5.0) | 51 (2.0) | 1,320 (52.0) |
| Source: Myweather2.com [13] | |||||||||||||
Tarkwa Senior High School (TARSCO) and Fiaseman Senior High School (FIASEC) are located in Tarkwa
University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), is located in Tarkwa.
Tarkwa is a junction railway station and is served by Tarkwa Train Station on the Ghana Railway Corporation.
Welkom is the second-largest city in the Free State province of South Africa, located about 140 kilometres (90 mi) northeast of Bloemfontein, the provincial capital. Welkom is also known as Circle City, City Within A Garden, Mvela and Matjhabeng. The city's Sesotho name, Matjhabeng means 'where nations meet', derived from the migrant labour system, where people of various countries such as Lesotho, Malawi and Mozambique etc. met to work in the mines of the gold fields.
Obuasi is a gold mining community and town which is the capital of the Obuasi Municipal District in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. It lies in the southern part of the Obuasi Municipal, 39 miles south-west of Ashanti capital city Kumasi. Obuasi has a population of 175,043 people. Obuasi mining community has a mixture of the Ashanti people culture and the semi-island exclave Ashantiland.
Harmony Gold is the largest gold mining company in South Africa. Harmony operates in South Africa and in Papua New Guinea. The company has nine underground mines, one open-pit mine and several surface operations in South Africa. In Papua New Guinea, it has Hidden Valley, an open-pit gold and silver mine and a 50% interest in the Morobe Mining Joint Venture, which includes the Wafi-Golpu project and extensive exploration tenements. Outside the joint venture, Harmony's own exploration portfolio focuses principally on highly prospective areas in Papua New Guinea.
Gold Fields Limited is one of the world's largest gold mining firms. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, the company is listed on both the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The firm was formed in 1998 with the amalgamation of the gold assets of Gold Fields of South Africa Limited and Gencor Limited. The company traces its roots back to 1887, when Cecil Rhodes founded Gold Fields of South Africa Limited. As of 2019, Gold Fields was the world's eighth-largest producer of gold.
The Ofin River is an easterly-flowing waterway in Ghana. It flows through the Tano Ofin Reserve in Ghana's Atwima Mponua District.
Sir Albert Ernest Kitson, was a British-Australian geologist, naturalist, and winner of the Lyell Medal in 1927.
Prestea is a town in the Western Region, in southwest Ghana and about 50 km north of the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies on the west bank of the Ankobra River, about 60 mi (100 km) northwest of Cape coast. The town is part of the Prestea-Huni Valley District. Prestea is the forty-sixth most populous in Ghana, in terms of population, with a population of 35,760 people. A railway line connects Prestea to Tarkwa and beyond to the coastal city of Sekondi-Takoradi.
Mining in South Africa was once the main driving force behind the history and development of Africa's most advanced and richest economy. Large-scale and profitable mining started with the discovery of a diamond on the banks of the Orange River in 1867 by Erasmus Jacobs and the subsequent discovery of the Kimberley pipes a few years later. Gold rushes to Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton were precursors to the biggest discovery of all, the Main Reef/Main Reef Leader on Gerhardus Oosthuizen's farm Langlaagte, Portion C, in 1886, the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the subsequent rapid development of the gold field there, the biggest of them all.
Konongo is a gold bar mining and manganese mining community located in Ashanti, Ghana. The town serves as the capital of the Asante Akim Central Municipal. As of 2012, Konongo has a settlement population of 41,238 people. Konongo is about 53 kilometres (33 mi) from Kumasi, the Ashanti capital.
The Mining industry of Ghana accounts for 5% of the country's GDP and minerals make up 37% of total exports. Gold contributes over 90% of the total mineral exports. Thus, the main focus of Ghana's mining and minerals development industry remains focused on gold. Ghana is Africa's largest gold producer, producing 80.5 t in 2008. Ghana is also a major producer of bauxite, manganese and diamonds. Ghana has 20 large-scale mining companies producing gold, diamonds, bauxite and manganese; over 300 registered small scale mining groups; and 90 mine support service companies. Other mineral commodities produced in the country are natural gas, petroleum, salt, and silver.
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Iamgold Corporation is a Canadian company that owns and operates gold mines in Burkina Faso and Canada. Headquartered in Toronto, the company was incorporated in 1990, and went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1996, with additional shares being listed on the New York Stock Exchange beginning in 2005. The company formerly owned or had stakes in the Sadiola and Yatela gold mines in Mali, the Mupane gold mine in Botswana, the Niobec niobium mine in Quebec, as well as a royalty in the Diavik Diamond Mine.
The Birimian rocks are major sources of gold and diamonds that extend through Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso. They are named after the Birim River, one of the main tributaries of the Pra River in Ghana and the country's most important diamond-producing area. Ghana and Mali are the second and third largest producers of gold in Africa, respectively.
The Iduapriem Gold Mine is an open-pit gold mine situated 10 km south of Tarkwa, in the Western Region of Ghana. The mine is owned by AngloGold Ashanti and consists of the Iduapriem and the Teberebie operation, which were merged in 2000. AngloGold Ashanti originally only owned 85% of the mine but acquired the remaining 15% in September 2007.
Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal District is one of the fourteen districts in Western Region, Ghana. Originally it was formerly part of the then-larger Wassa West District in 1988, which was created from the former Wassa-Fiase-Mpohor District Council, until the northern part of the district was split off to create Prestea-Huni Valley District on 29 February 2008; thus the remaining part has been renamed as Tarkwa-Nsuaem District, which was later elevated to municipal district assembly status on that same year to become Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal District. The municipality is located in the eastern part of Western Region and has Tarkwa as its capital town.
Aboso is a town near Tarkwa, and is the capital of Wassa West district, a district in the Western Region of Ghana. Aboso is the 78th most populous settlement in Ghana, with a population of 9,945 people. At the Ghana census of 18 March 1984, there were 4,700 inhabitants living in the town.
The Free State Gold Rush was a gold rush in Free State, South Africa. It began after the end of World War II, even though gold had been discovered in the area around the year 1934. It drove major development in the region until the mid–to–late 1980s as part of the mineral revolution in South Africa.
The geology of Ghana is primarily very ancient crystalline basement rock, volcanic belts and sedimentary basins, affected by periods of igneous activity and two major orogeny mountain building events. Aside from modern sediments and some rocks formed within the past 541 million years of the Phanerozoic Eon, along the coast, many of the rocks in Ghana formed close to one billion years ago or older leading to five different types of gold deposit formation, which gave the region its former name Gold Coast.
The geology of Ivory Coast is almost entirely extremely ancient metamorphic and igneous crystalline basement rock between 2.1 and more than 3.5 billion years old, comprising part of the stable continental crust of the West African Craton. Near the surface, these ancient rocks have weathered into sediments and soils 20 to 45 meters thick on average, which holds much of Ivory Coast's groundwater. More recent sedimentary rocks are found along the coast. The country has extensive mineral resources such as gold, diamonds, nickel and bauxite as well as offshore oil and gas.
George Mireku Duker is a Ghanaian politician. He is serving as a Deputy Minister at Ghana's Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources since 2021, and is the Member of Parliament for Tarkwa-Nsuaem since 2017. He was elected into parliament on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party.
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