CONTINENTAL AFRICA CONTINUED
KIBALI
Competent Persons
Kibali
Category
Competent Person
Professional
organisation
Membership
number
Relevant
experience
Qualification
Mineral Resource and
Ore Reserve
Rodney Quick*
SACNASP
400014/05
24 years
BSc Hons (Geology),
MSc (Geology)
* Employed by Randgold, 3rd Floor, Unity Chambers, 28 Halkett Street, St Helier, Jersey OJE2
Geology
Deposit type
Deposits of the Kibali district are located in the Archaean Moto Greenstone Belt bounded to the north by the West Nile Gneiss and
to the south by plutonic rocks of the Watsa district. The belt comprises three lithostratigraphically distinct blocks. Psammopelitic
schists, amphibolite, banded iron formation, and gneissic granitoid sills metamorphosed under upper greenschist to low-mid-
amphibolite facies conditions form the eastern part of the belt. Relative weakly foliated basalts, cherts, siliciclastic rocks, dacitic
volcaniclastic rocks, and carbonaceous argillite metamorphosed under mid to upper greenschist facies conditions comprise
the central and western-most parts of the belt. Granitoid plutons as old as ca. 2,640Ma intrude these rocks. A thick package of
immature sandstone, gritstone, conglomerate, and probably acid tuffs forms much of the western part of the belt, including the host
rocks to Karagba, Chauffeur and Durba (KCD), the largest deposit discovered to date within the belt. Radiometric dating indicates
these siliclastic rocks were deposited during a belt-wide basin extension event between ca. 2,629-2,626Ma with much of the
detritus derived from adjacent older parts of the belt.
Boundaries between these lithostratigraphic blocks represent important exploration targets.
The main Kibali deposit consists of the combination of Karagba, Chauffeur and Durba (KCD) deposit. Currently only the KCD
deposit hosts an underground Ore Reserve and this constitutes 84% of the total KCD Ore Reserve.
Mineralisation style
Gold mineralisation of the Kibali district are classified as Archaean orogenic gold deposits. At Kibali the gold deposits are largely
hosted in siliciclastic rocks, banded iron formations and chert that were metamorphosed under greenschist facies conditions. Ore-
forming H
2
O-CO
2
-rich fluids migrated along a linked network of gently northeast-dipping shears and northeast to NNE-plunging
fold axes that is commonly referred to as the KZ Trend. The richly mineralised KZ Trend appears to have initiated as an extensional
fault system along the boundary between the relatively young basin in the western part of the belt and older rocks to the east.
Mineralisation occurred during the later stages of subsequent regional contractional deformation, which resulted in inversion of the
basin, development of reverse faults and folds. Ongoing deformation during hydrothermal activity resulted in development of lodes
in a variety of related structural settings within the KZ Trend. The source(s) of metal and fluids, which formed the deposits remain
unknown, but metamorphic devolatilisation reactions within the supracrustal rocks of the Moto Greenstone Belt and/or deeper fluid
and metal sources may have contributed.
Mineralisation characteristics
Gold deposits of the Kibali district are associated with haloes of quartz, ankerite and sericite, ACSA-A alteration that extend for 10s
to 100s of metres into the adjacent rocks. This widespread ACSA-A alteration assemblage is superimposed on older greenschist
facies metamorphic assemblages. Locally in the vicinity of the main mineralised zones ACSA-A alteration is overprinted by ankerite-
siderite, pyrite alteration (ACSA-B) that hosts the ore. Gold is directly associated with the ACSA-B alteration assemblage. In smaller
peripheral deposits a late chlorite, carbonate, pyrite assemblage is associated with the ore rather than the ACSA-B assemblage,
implying a district-wide zonation of mineral assemblages along and across the mineralised KZ Trend. Zones of auriferous ACSA-B
alteration are commonly developed along the margins of banded iron formation, or contacts between chert, carbonaceous phyllite,
and banded iron formation. Mineralised rocks in the Kibali district typically lack significant infill quartz-rich veins, unlike many other
orogenic gold deposits. Gold is instead associated with pyrite in zones of alteration that replaced the earlier mineralogy of the host
rocks. Local remobilisation and upgrading of ACSA-B related ore occurred adjacent to the margins of some post-ore crosscutting
chlorite, carbonate, pyrite, magnetite-altered diorite dykes.
74
MINERAL RESOURCE AND ORE RESERVE REPORT
2017
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