Iourirne gold deposit is located in Tagragra of Akka inlier, 260 km to the southeast of Agadir, (Western Anti-Atlas). The gold mineralization occurs in quartz veins associated with shear zones occurring in East-West direction and cut across the Early forming process of Neoproterozoic formations. This study aims to characterize supergene alteration characterization of Iourirne gold mineralization, by macroscopic, microscopic observations, chemical analysis of major elements, analysis of the correlation matrix and analysis in Principal Components (PCA).
The main results are as follows:
- The mobility of a number of chemical elements such as Ti, Fe, P, Ca, Mg, Mn.
- The development of Hematitization phenomenon of supergene origin.
- The abundance of metallic minerals such as magnetite, hematite, covellite, malachite, azurite and sphalerite…
- The oxidation of sulphides including arsenopyrite, pyrite, chalcopyrite…
The Jebilets and Guemassa hercynian massives constitute one of the most important metallogenic provinces of Morocco. In this province, mining exploration is focused on the research of massive sulphide mineralization in a volcano-sedimentary sitting. It makes extensive use of geophysical methods performed on both ground airborne surveys. Magnetometry is one of the most employed techniques which show that magnetic anomalies are associated with pyrrhotite-rich massive sulphide. Indeed, the effectiveness of this method is proven by the discovery of the Hajar deposit through airborne magnetic survey. However, its use is handicapped by the abundance of basic and ultrabasic rocks that generate the same anomalies than massive sulphide ore bodies. This article is concerned with the magnetic prospecting difficulties related to mining exploration in the Jebilet-Guemassa metallogenic province. It clarifies the origin of magnetic anomalies related to basic and ultrabasic rocks enriched in iron-titanic minerals and suggests an alternative approach to bring response elements to this problem. This result may guide the mining exploration for the detection and characterization of anomalies associated with massive sulphide deposits in the geological and mining sitting of Jebilets-Guemassa.