The Boundaries of the West African Craton.: NASSER ENNIH and JEAN-PAUL LIEGEOIS, Editors. Pp. 536. 2008. Geological Society, London Special Publication 297. ISBN 978-1-86239-251-9. US$200.00.

Abstract

The aim of this volume is to examine the metacratonic events that created the boundaries of the West African Craton (WAC). As such, it does not address, except indirectly, the main gold-forming events, which are mostly interior to the WAC boundaries and a result of craton- forming events. Despite (from the viewpoint of a WAC gold explorationist) this shortcoming, the volume is nevertheless an ambitious, academically rigorous, well-organized group of papers describing an area of the world that is both underexplored and understudied. It also highlights some of the recent high-level work being done at West African universities and research institutes. The papers in the book employ a wide variety of research methods, from sedimentological and structural analyses to seismic studies. The majority of the papers use rigorous petrochemical approaches to the deduce P-T-X conditions of the tectonic and magmatic events associated with the metacratonic events occurring at the WAC boundaries, particularly with the northern Anti-Atlas domain, which 11 out of 25 papers cover. The volume also has several papers describing interesting economic or potentially economic mineral occurrences: an Archean Fe oxide-Cu-Au-Co deposit in Mauritania, potential sources of placer diamonds in the Algerian Sahara, and an intriguing gold deposit hosted in a …