Application of Ground Penetrating Radar in delineating zones of Gold Mineralization at the Subenso-North Concession of Newmont Ghana Gold Limited

The growing interest in Ghana’s gold mining sector due to the recent upsurge in the price of gold has impacted greatly on the economy of the country with regard to its revenue generation capacity. There is therefore the need to develop this sector. Hence, any new method which is relatively low cost and has comparable efficiency compared to prevailing conventional methods in delineating new potential gold fields would be highly recommended. This study therefore aims at using the ground penetrating radar (GPR) a hitherto unknown geophysical method in the mining industry in Ghana, to detect possible zones of gold mineralization in Ghana. The GPR survey was conducted over the Subenso-north gold deposit, a property of Newmont Ghana Gold Limited to delineate geological structures that possibly host gold mineralization. The Mala GPR equipment with 25 MHz unshielded rough terrain antenna frequency in the common offset mode was used to conduct the survey. The survey was conducted over an area of 1 km 2 with a total of 21 profiles at a 50 m profile separation. Results of the survey indicated weathered saprolitic topsoil up to a depth of about 12 m. In addition two structural patterns possibly hosting gold mineralization were delineated as S1 and S2. The S1 and S2 inferred structures were found between the depth ranges of (12 m and 42 m) and (31 m and 48 m respectively. Comparison of results from co-located electrical resistivity and chargeability measurements confirmed the mineralization trend of the surveyed site.