Author(s)

Tokpa Kakeu Lionel-Dimitri Boya¹, N’Guessan Nestor Houssou¹, Marc Ephrem Allialy¹, Allou Gnanzou¹, Lamia Erraioui², Benyounes Maamar³, Souad M. Rabet²

¹Geology of Basement and Metallogeny Laboratory (GBML), Training and Research Unit of Earth Sciences and Mining Resources, University of Felix HOUPHOUET-BOIGNY, Abidjan-Cocody, Côte d’Ivoire.
²Georesources and Environment Laboratory, Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences, University Ibn Tofail, Kenitra, Morocco.
³Managem Group, Tower A, Twin Center, Casablanca, Morocco.

Irbiben is a small gold deposit of the Precambrian inlier Tagragra d’Akka located in the Moroccan western Anti-Atlas, approximately 160 km southeast from Tiznit. Petrographic study shows that host rocks of Irbiben deposit are green schist facies metamorphic rocks, like metamorphic sandstone and schist, meta-pelite and quartzite. Gold is located in quartz veins or host rock with frequent injections of quartz. The petrographic characterization of alteration through the description of the alteration profiles and the comparative study of protolith and altered rocks showed a development of dominant quartz and calcite in mineralization wall-rocks. In moving away from it, there is rather sericite and chlorite. These phenomena are materialized respectively by the development of SiO₂ and CaO in the wall-rocks but rather that ferromagnesian elements (FeO, MgO) and K₂O away from the mineralization. These trends were demonstrated by the geochemical study through Harker diagrams, description of alteration profiles, comparative study of protolith and altered rocks, and use of a new alteration index, MIA, elaborated during this work.

Irbiben Gold Deposit, Hydrothermal Alteration, Petrography, Geochemistry, Morocco

Boya, T. , Houssou, N. , Allialy, M. , Gnanzou, A. , Erraioui, L. , Maamar, B. and M. Rabet, S. (2017) Hydrothermal Alterations in Irbiben Gold Deposit (Tagragra Akka, Western Anti-Atlas, Morocco): Petrographic and Geochemical Characterization. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 5, 46-60. doi: 10.4236/gep.2017.511005.