Preliminary Gold Mineralization Potential Assessment of a Site Covering Parts of Gwagwalada and Abaji Area Council, Federal Capital Territory (Abuja)

Abstract

Communication in Physical Sciences, 2022, 8(4):620-635

Authors: Solape Simeon Fadeyi, Obinna Christian Dinneya, and Akeem Adigun

Received: 22 July 2022/Accepted  20 December  2022

Gold producing areas in Nigeria are located within the western part of the basement where the schist belts are best developed because there is a spatial relationship with some schist belts even though gold also occurs in quartz veins and in gneisses. However, there are also occurrences of gold in other areas that are not part of the major schist belt but are partially associated with them, such as those in the Federal capital of Nigeria. The various vein mapped on the field ranges in thickness from a few cm to 1  m amongst others. Most of the main gold bearing veins found in the site are highly associated with fracturing, faulting and shearing, this ductile deformation was accompanied by brittle deformation and infiltrated by hydrothermal fluids leading to silicification, carbonatisation, sericitisation, pyritisation of second and third generations and gold mineralisation along such crevices, and these localised occurrences orientation are concordant with the main mineralisation trends which is NNE-SSW occurrences associated within the main schist belts,  and these mineralised veins, stringers, lenses, reefs and similar bodies of quartz, quartz-feldspar and quartz-tourmaline rocks occurs in both the supracrustal rocks and the Migmatite-Gniess complex basement rock underlying the area. The study area is also highly rich in alluvial gold as most of the main river channels in the area yield some specks of gold when properly sampled. The main method used for this survey was different forms of geological field investigation including alluvial and eluvial soil sampling, panning and vein trenching to describe the gold potentials over Gwagwalada and Abaji local government area, located within the FCT, Abuja area in the central region of Nigeria, underlain by the basement rock of the Migmatite – Gneiss  complex., the main recommendation on the area is about 80% of alluvial prospect that can be harnessed and the 20% for primary deposits type which was strategically mapped and identified ad these will involve a full detailed exploration to be carried out ranging from Geological to geochemical, geophysical and drilling