Abstract
Recent petro-structural investigations on the Faboula gold deposit located in the Bougouni-Kékoro basin, in southern Mali, north-west of the Leo-Man Shield, have provided new data on the nature and spatial organization of the lithostratigraphic units as well as their deformation style. The deposit is covered by a thick lateritic layer and is hosted by a metavolcano-sedimentary sequence of Paleoproterozoic age intersected by intrusive bodies and filled fractures of various shapes and types. The lithostratigraphic units consist of metagreywackes, metasiltstones, meta-argillites, slates and schists. Metagreywackes and metasiltstones are generally feldspathic, both may contain biotite and locally amphibole, just as slates may contain andalusite which is locally stretched. Plutonic units most often occur as stocks or as dikes on the drill core, up to 1 m. The metavolcano-sedimentary rocks are schistose and deformed under greenschist facies conditions, and locally they reach the epidote-amphibolite facies. The structural study revealed that the deposit is affected by several stages of deformation evolving from a ductile type to a brittle type via a ductile-brittle type. The dominant ductile and brittle-ductile deformations show a combination of isoclinal folding and strike-slip faults. Both the isoclinal folding and the strike-slip faults whose sigmoidal en-echelon tension gashes indicate a dextral movement in the NNE-SSW direction are the result of the same ENE-WSW regional shortening. Consequently, they highlight a transpressive deformation. This deformation noted here D2Fb, could be equivalent to the regional D2 or D3 deformations identified at the scale of the Leo-Man Shield if we refer to the style of deformation. There is an abundance of quartz veins networks. Their relation within the structural features indicates that the mineralization is structurally controlled during a hydrothermal event linked certainly to the circulations of fluids during the transpressive event D2Fb.
Highlights
West Africa Craton (WAC) has become the target of gold exploration and exploitation by the major global mining companies because of its world-class gold deposit and the increase of the price of the precious metal.This interest triggered the development of a lot of scientific research and industrial projects among national geological surveys, mining companies and universities for a better understanding of the geological evolution of the WAC
Recent petro-structural investigations on the Faboula gold deposit located in the Bougouni-Kékoro basin, in southern Mali, north-west of the Leo-Man Shield, have provided new data on the nature and spatial organization of the lithostratigraphic units as well as their deformation style
The deposit is covered by a thick lateritic layer and is hosted by a metavolcano-sedimentary sequence of Paleoproterozoic age intersected by intrusive bodies and filled fractures of various shapes and types
Summary
West Africa Craton (WAC) has become the target of gold exploration and exploitation by the major global mining companies because of its world-class gold deposit and the increase of the price of the precious metal. This interest triggered the development of a lot of scientific research and industrial projects among national geological surveys, mining companies and universities for a better understanding of the geological evolution of the WAC. Gold deposits in the WAC are principally hosted in the Paleoproterozoic formations, known as Birimian formations, which developed between ca. Half of the world’s gold reserves are in the Precambrian formations [17]
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