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Taparko |
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Burkina Faso |
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Au
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Super Porphyry Cu and Au
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IOCG Deposits - 70 papers
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All papers now Open Access.
Available as Full Text for direct download or on request. |
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The Taparko gold deposit is located within the eastern branch of the Proterozoic Birimian Bouroum-Yalogo greenstone belt in Burkina Faso.
Mineralisation comprises a network of quartz veins developed in a 250 m wide, 4 km long shear zone trending at 170° which is superimposed upon the regional Birimian structural pattern. The quartz veins are composed of:
i). a dominant array of type 1 quartz veins (strongly deformed dark quartz exhibiting foliation, layering, ribbon, tension gashes, etc.), developed parallel to the shear zone;
ii). oblique and subparallel related type 2 veins (grey to white weakly deformed quartz crosscutting the dominant quartz veins resulting in breccia structures); and
iii). shallow dipping type 3 veins (cross-cutting veins types 1 and 2) composed of undeformed white buck quartz.
Metallic minerals are only found in type 1 and 2 veins, deposited in two stages, with native gold being related to the second stage sulphides. Gold and chalcopyrite were precipitated preferentially on the surfaces of fractured pyrite grains in pressure shadow zones surrounding and/or within the sulphide grains.
The Taparko deposit is related to a succession of events, commencing with the 170° sinistral transcurrent shearing producing a 20° trending mylonitic foliation and fractured rock which allowed H2O-, CO2- and SiO2-rich fluids to deposit buck quartz. This was followed by the strong deformation of the type 1 quartz and deposition of sigmoidal type 2 veins. The sinistral transcurrent shearing subsequently evolved into sinistral reverse shearing and the deformation style changed from ductile to brittle-ductile. Gold nucleated and was deposited in low-pressure zones during this last phase of deformation.
The deposit has a resource in 1997 of 9.8 Mt @ 3.43 g Au/t for over 30 tonnes (1 Moz) of contained gold.
The most recent source geological information used to prepare this decription was dated: 1997.
This description is a summary from published sources, the chief of which are listed below.
© Copyright Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Ltd. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, storage or dissemination prohibited.
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Bourges F, Debat P, Tollon F, Munoz M, Ingles J 1998 - The geology of the Taparko gold deposit, Birimian greenstone belt, Burkina Faso, West Africa: in Mineralium Deposita v33 pp 591-605
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