Guinea. Economic analysis

Senegalese mineral reserves as of January 2000 are:

¹	Mineral	Reserves			Recovery
		Unit of measure	Supposed	Proved
1.	Oil	mln tons	535	-	heavy oil
2.	Gas	bln m3	530	110	-
3.	Iron	mln tons	1157	733	47-67%
4.	Titanium (ilmenite, rutile)	mln tons	112	10	25-57%
5.	Gold	tons	60	30	placer- 1,15 gr/m3 primary- 4,6 gr/ton
6.	Lithium	tons	11000	5000	7%
7.	Tin, tantalum, niobium	thousand tons	5	-	-
8.	Phosphorites	mln tons	500	150	23-32%
9.	Marble	mln tons	1	0,35	-

Gold. Total gold resources in Senegal are assessed at 60 tons, including 30 tons of industrial gold resources. Gold mining in Senegalese placers has been going on for a long time now. Its producing capacity was all diverse, but stayed within the 200 kilograms a year mark. Alluvial placers of Faleme river and its tributaries remain the main target of amateurish miners.
The majority of gold ore and placer deposits is located in the very eastern part of the country in Galaman rock mass and, partly, in Faleme deflection.
Sabodala formation is represented by a series of low-silfide quartz veins with visible gold. Prospecting works of recent years detected 2.8 mln tons of ore reserves, with 6 to 15.2 grams/ton gold content. Total gold reserves count about 35 tons of gold including 5 tons categorized as known reserve and 2,754.3 kilograms belonging to the C₂ category. Geological prospects of this region, as well as those of a rather extended (200 by 60 kilometers) zone of Lower Proterozoic metavolcanites (meta-andesite, metabasalts, amphibolites) pierced with granite and granodiorite bodies, appear quite reassuring.
Kerekoundah deposit lies 1 km to the south-west of Kerekoundah village. The coordinates of the deposit's centre are: 13°08'40" of north latitude and 12°05'00" of west longitude. Discovered by Yuri A. Nikitin, a geologist. During the prospecting, C₂ category reserves were explored and assessed at 2,230 kilograms. The deposit is a quartz-vein zone controlled by a north-west-ward fracture. The zone can be traced as far as 100 meters and still farther by its elivial-diluvial quartz piles and stretches down for 77.4 meters (core drill figures). The ores are characterized by uneven gold distribution, varying from 2.7 to 373.8 grams/ton. Average gold content within the borders of the assessed reserves contour equals 31.5 grams/ton. Other components in the ore are as follows: silver (25.4 grains per ton), tungsten (up to 0.06%), arsenic (up to 0.05%) and molybdenum (up to 0.02%).
"Sabodala" and "Kerekoundah" deposits are promising ones and their reserves may turn out much bigger in the course of further prospecting. Both are prepared for development.
In the region explored by Soviet geologists 1,360 hydrothermal occurrences were studied and tested, in the majority of them gold mineralization proved to reach 0.1 grams/ton and higher, and more than 1.0 grain/ton in 75 of them.
The analysis of the ore occurrences' disposition inside the sedimentary-volcanic rock complex, together with the gold mineralization's connection to quartz veins and silicification zones, suggests a conclusion that the region is likely to hide new commercial gold deposits.
Apart from these discovered and well-explored gold deposits in Sabodala and Kerekoundah, detected were over 30 different ore occurrences and placers, for instance, Mura-32, Daloto-33, and others. Sanbarabougou-36 seems, however, to be the most interesting one among them. It is represented by two placer sites in the valleys of Dyale and Makabinghi rivers. The placer in Dyale valley is 2 km long and 250-300 meters wide. The gold here belongs to the placer bed whose thickness varies from 0.06 to 0.53 meters. The gold is compact-grained and fine (purity 879-883). Gold reserves in the sands of average thickness 0.55 meters and content of 1.39 grams/m³ total 297.2 kilograms.
The placer in Makabinghi valley is 6 km long and 300-600 meters wide. Gold distribution here is extremely uneven, but in most cases gold is related to the placer bed zone and the placer bed itself. The latter is represented by clayey residuum of granites and diorites. The gold is, again, very compact-grained and fine (purity 800-874). As proves the experience of 125 prospecting extractions, gold content varies from 0.1 to5.25 grams/m³. Presuming average 1.06 grams/m³ gold content and 0.56 meters sand thickness we get 676.9 kilograms of gold in Makabinghi. The overall Sanbarabougou reserves count 974.1 kilograms with 1.15 grams/m³ average recovery and 0.56 meters average thickness of sands.
Numerous occurrences of stream gold were detected in Faleme and Gambia river valleys, as well as the rivers' tributaries. Most of these placers are by far not as vast and contain fine dust-like gold of high purity (833-884). Amateur miners sometimes turn to prospecting methods here.

Diamonds. Diamonds were never mined in Senegal, only accidental diamond occurrences in alluvial depositions were found. In Galaman rock mass there were around 10 diamond occurrences detected. All of them were related to alluvial sediments of Faleme river that stretched along the river valley from Kundami to Frandi and Ilimalo-Vassandara villages. Same thing along Gambia river valley, near Angouenipissa section and in the upper parts of its left tributary called Tiokoye. First diamond occurrences in terrace and sand bar depositions of Faleme (5 diamonds) and Gambia (1 diamond) rivers prompted UNESCO to begin prospecting works here, with participation of Soviet geologists. During this expedition (years 1964-1967) 4 more crystals of transparent and yellowish gem diamonds weighing from 0.02 to 0.21 carats were discovered in modern sand bar depositions and ancient terrace alluvium of Faleme river, near Vassandara.
Kimberlite pipes located in the nearby Mali (Kenyeba region) are thought to be the source of Faleme river alluvial diamonds. Vassandara, Fasya, Maykamin and Gabu villages and their vicinities along the Faleme river, , are considered to be possible locations of small gem diamond placers.

Senegal. Titanium, zirconium and more...