Trip has been cancelled.

This trip to north-western Ghana visits the poly-deformed metamorphic terranes of the Paleoproterozoic West African Craton and Eburnean orogeny.

The tour will visit outcrops of the Wa-Lawra greenstone belt and gold exploration projects, high-grade metamorphic rocks and migmatitic gneisses of the Bole-Bulenga domain and examine the high-strain zones at the transition between domains of contrasting geological histories and their significance in terms of lower-crust exhumation and craton architecture.

This part of the craton is made of various metamorphic terranes that are intruded by successive generations of granitoid suites. High-grade gneisses and migmatites were exhumed during the Eburnean orogeny (2.14-2.10 Ga) and juxtaposed against low-grade greenstone belts and volcano-sedimentary basins. The various metamorphic domains are bounded by reverse, extensional and transcurrent shear zones, some of which host significant gold mineralisations.

During the field trip, we will recognise a large diversity of rock types, including lithological associations that are typical of the Paleoproterozoic West African Craton. We will also visit mineralised zones and gold exploration sites. In NW Ghana, high-quality outcrops in spectacular high-grade metamorphic rocks provide a window into the lower crust of the Eburnean orogeny. Our itinerary follows regional-scale cross-sections across contrasting tectonic and metamorphic domains.

Airborne geophysical datasets are available to assist field observation and geological interpretation.

The West African Craton is a key locality to understand secular geodynamic changes after the Archean-Proterozoic transition. Our observations will provide us with some clues on the dominant orogenic processes back into the Paleoproterozoic.

Field Trip Leader: Sylvain Block                                                        
Start/end: Accra, Ghana
Date: 8 days, ~7-14 September 2016                                            
Price: TBA