Gold from Auriferous Iron ore of Goa, India

Abstract

In view of the closure of the 65 years old Iron ore industry in Indian state of Goa due to complex techno-legal and environmental issues, lack of systematic geochemical evaluation of the mineral wealth have led to the wastage of precious auriferous resources. Goa falling under the Western Dharwar Craton (WDC), is one of Asia's major metallogenic province having Banded Iron Formation (BIF) of late Archean and Paleoproterozoic periods which provided the backbone of the local Iron ore industry since 1946. There is lack of knowledge on the systematic geochemical evaluation of Iron ore of Goa area. Iron ore centered mining and export strategy had completely overlooked Gold mineralization of economic importance which is mainly restricted to Archean greenstone terrains of the WDC. The samples were analyzed from the BIF belt of Goa area using SEM-EDX with the quantification of the gold using ICP-AES to clear the global ambiguity over auriferous nature of Goa's Iron Ore.