Visitors flying into Johannesburg's airports gaze down upon the small, seemingly regular hills that ring the city that is known in Zulu as eGoli, "place of gold".
These mine dumps are testament to the millions of tonnes of earth that have been shifted in the search for gold around the city over the past 130 years.
But the gold mining industry that gave rise to one of Africa's biggest cities is now in crisis.
Costs, including wages, have escalated over the past two decades and the gold itself is getting harder to get to.
Some analysts describe the gold sector as in terminal decline - a sunset industry.
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