West African craton

The >7 Moz Morila Au deposit, Mali, is an enigmatic member of a continuum of Au deposits now described across the West African Craton (Fig. 1). In contrast to more traditional shear zone-hosted and stockwork deposits, hydrothermal alteration and brittle structures at Morila are cryptic and there are no apparent lithological controls on mineralization. 

The host rocks to Morila are regionally equivalent to the Mesoproterozoic Birrimian basin and belt sequences exposed across the West African craton in Senegal, Mali, Cote d Ivoire, Ghana and Burkina (Feybesse et al. 2006). 

Toft P. B., Hills D. V., and Haggerty S. E. (1989) Crustal evolution and the granulite to eclogite transition in xenohths from kimberlites in the West African craton. Tectonophysics 161, 213-231. 

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