Porter GeoConsultancy conducted a two module professional development course that took in a representative selection of the classic gold and related base metal deposits of two of the great Archaean gold terranes of the world.

These deposits, in Canada, South Africa and Zimbabwe, illustrate the range of different styles and settings, similarities and contrasts, of gold occurrence in Archaean hosts.

The two modules included the following:

North American Module - 15 days, from 4 July, 1997

  Technical geological visits to the Miramar Con and Giant Yellowknife gold deposits in the Yellowstone Greenstone Belt of the Slave Province, Northwest Territories, Canada; the Lupin gold deposit, hosted by banded iron formation in a turbidite sequence of the central Slave Province, 400 km to the NNE, in Nunavut. The remainder of the deposits in this module were in various sub-provinces of the Superior Province and comprised the Campbell-Red Lake gold in the Uchi Sub-province, and then the Hemlo gold and Manitouwadge Cu-Zn deposits in the Schreiber-Hemlo Greenstone Belt of the Wawa Sub-province. The rest are within the Abitibi Sub-province and comprised the Kidd Creek Cu-Zn deposits found in a similar setting in Ontario to the Dome gold and Laronde-Bousquet #2 Au-Cu-Zn deposits in Ontario and Quebec respectively.

  These visits were supported by expert led traverses of the Giant Section at Yellowknife in the NWT, the Red Lake Greenstone Belt and Hemlo host sequence in Ontario and section of the Abitibi Sub-province that hosts base and gold deposits in Quebec, as well as an associated workshop on Canadian Geology & Mineral Deposits in Timmins. These traverses and accompanying briefings were led by experts from the Geological Surveys of Ontario, Quebec and Canada.

African Module, 5 days, from 21 July, 1997

  Technical geological visits to three of the Witwatersrand gold mines at East Driefontein at Carltonville, and Loraine and Target, near Welkom in the Free State. These visits were preceded by a full day Seminar on African Geology & Gold Deposits in Johannesburg. The participants also had the opportunity to study a full drill core transect through the Witwatersrand Basin and gold reefs, from the overlying Neoarchaean Venterdorp Supergroup volcanics, to the Mersoarchaean basement Dominion Group.

  The module next moved on to visit the Mesoarchaean Eastern Transvaal Consolidated Mines deposits of the Barberton Mountain Land, in the pre-Witwatersrand basement of the eastern Kaapvaal Craton.

  The tour concluded with a briefing on the gold deposits and geology of Zimbabwe, in Harare, and a visit to the Renco gold deposit in the Limpopo Mobile Belt between the Zimbabwe and Kaapvaal cratons.

PHOTO ALBUM  -  See who went and what they saw         Review Article - in Gold Gazette

  This study tour was planned, organised and managed by Porter GeoConsultancy as a professional development course on the curriculum of the Australian Mineral Foundation.