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Impairment of Assets (Tables) | 12 Months Ended
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Dec. 31, 2012
Impairment Of Assets |
|  | Fiscal Year Ended December 31, |  |  | Six Months Ended December 31, |  |  | Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|  | 2012 |  |  | 2011 |  |  | 2010 |  |  | 2010 |
Materials contained on heap leach pad (1) |  |  | 19.2 |  |  |  | — |  |  |  | — |  |  |  | — |
Property, plant and equipment (2) |  |  | 14.5 |  |  |  | 9.5 |  |  |  | — |  |  |  | — |
Biox - property, plant and equipment (3) |  |  | 7.9 |  |  |  | — |  |  |  | — |  |  |  | — |
|  |  | 41.6 |  |  |  | 9.5 |  |  |  | — |  |  |  | — |
| (1) | The charge of $19.2 million relates to a write-down to market value in Australia due to the cessation of the heap leach at St. Ives.
| (2) | The impairment charge in fiscal 2012 consisted of a $10.1 million impairment of heap leach assets in Australia due to the cessation of the heap leach at St. Ives and $4.4 million impairment of heavy mining machinery in Ghana. The impairment charge in fiscal 2011 resulted from the decision to reassess the optimal processing methodology for the oxides at Cerro Corona, where the focus was on the evaluation of a heap leach operation to capture the value inherent in the oxide instead of a stand-alone oxide plant; the evaluation costs of which were written off in 2011.
| (3) | The Group impaired its patented technology, known as the Biox process, which is used for the pretreatment of refractory ores and concentrates prior to gold recovery through conventional cyanide leaching techniques. The Group entered into an agreement to sell its Biox technology in 2013.

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- Definition Tabular disclosure for impairment of all assets held and used by an entity which includes a description of the impaired asset and facts and circumstances leading to the impairment, aggregate amount of the impairment loss and where the loss is located in the income statement, method(s) for determining fair value, and the segment in which the impaired long-lived asset is reported + References No definition available. + Details
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Namespace Prefix: | gfi_
Data Type: | nonnum:textBlockItemType
Balance Type: | na
Period Type: | duration