ABSTRACT
CHARACTERIZATION OF HYDROTHERMAL ALTERATION ZONES IN PARTS OF NORTH-CENTRAL BASEMENT COMPLEX OF NIGERIA FOR SOLID MINERAL DEPOSITS
Journal: Earth Sciences Pakistan (ESP)
Author: Bwamba, Jonah Ayuba, Abu Mallam and Abel U. Osagie
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
Doi: 10.26480/esp.02.2024.92.99
This study aimed at mapping the lithological formations and hydrothermally altered zones that are fruitful for the mineral potential in parts of the north-central basement complex of Nigeria using aeroradiometric data. The resulting radioelement of uranium (eU), thorium (eTh) and potassium (K%) anomaly data were subsequently used to depict the lithologies and hydrothermal alteration zones using ternary and potassium to thorium ratio imageries respectively. The abundance of K, eTh and eU varies in proportion of 0.12 to 4.37 %, 5.49 to 29.41 ppm and 0.49 to 8.29 ppm. The potassium to thorium ratio ranges from 0.01 to 0.38 %ppm revealing the hydrothermally altered zones to be around Dadabiri, Pai, Kwali, Gao and Tagwai. Hence, the prominent minerals identified in the study include albite (feldspar), granite, dolerite, gold and muscovite. The distribution and extent of these mineralized zones fall within a broad northeast-southwest trending axis.
| Pages | 92-99 |
| Year | 2024 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Volume | 8 |
