Seminar

The northeastern part of DRC lies one of the highly prospective greenstone gold belt in the world. The generally E-W trending belt includes the 17 million ounces Kibali gold mine owned by Barrick Gold. 35km west of Kibali, there lies the 4 million ounces plus Giro gold deposit which is the targeted research area of this study.  

A package of volcaniclastic conglomerates with a dacitic crystal-ash matrix, basalt and andesite lavas, and siltstones interbedded with very fine-grained banded iron formation are the oldest rocks in the Giro district. These rocks were deposited at or after 2643Ma as the age of the dacitic matric of the volcaniclastic conglomerates in one sample. The volcanic and sedimentary rocks are intruded by a number of chemically and petrographically distinct suites of intrusive which mostly post-date the mineralisation.  

The host rock was metamorphosed and foliated in greenschist facies possibly prior to mineralization. Mineralised pyrite/ quartz/ carbonate veins are associated with halos of pyrite/ chlorite/ tourmaline alteration, forming a 1.3 x 0.8 x 0.3 km mineralized envelope which still opens to the north and down dip. These veins and alteration halos overprint the metamorphic alteration assemblage in all rock types that they are present. It is also observed from drill holes that a few cross-cutting mineralized veins that also associated with chalcopyrite bear higher gold grade.  

The NW-trending Giro gold belt is surrounded by a number of cropped-out granitoids. The relationship between the granitoids and gold mineralization is one of the issues that aims to be solved in this study. More samples were obtained in this study in order to precisely confined the age of gold mineralization, to delineate if there were more than one phrase of gold mineralization, and to correlate the Giro gold mineralization to the Kibali gold mineralization so as to pave clearer guideline in the upcoming gold exploration in the region. 

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