Abstract

The aim of this research is to investigate reasons for the lack of exploration success in the savannah regions of Northern Ghana and offer some remediation. The failure of exploration expedition could be traced from scores of unsuccessful and abandoned grassroots explorations programmes since 1935. More recently the discontinuous exploration activities in Northern Ghana, even in the midst of the gold boom and favorable commodity prices have been regrettable. Also, for about 78 years now that gold occurrence was reported in these northern Ghana, none had been developed to a prospective mine. The problem is attributed to the lack of understanding the regolith distribution and characteristics of gold deposits as well as poor exploration practices. Application of enhanced exploration methods such as the use of regolith mapping and characterization, remote sensing and study into landform modifications and variabilities in Northern Ghana could help reveal patchy and false anomalies. Again, resulting dispositional overburden as well as thick ferruginous enrichment which tend to mask anomalous signatures could be unraveled by enhanced exploration techniques. The solution to these unsuccessful exploration expeditions therefore require the understanding of the regolith environment, mineral hosts for gold and trace metals along with regolith map that aids in interpreting geochemical signatures could assist to unravel potential mineralization under cover.

Keywords:

Birimian, dispersion pattern, exploration, landform modification, northern Ghana, regolith,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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The authors have no competing interests.