localization in western Africa
Geological map of the Tarkwa gold district in Ghana showing significant folding and faulting

The Man Shield (Leo-Man Shield or Leo-Man Craton) is a geological shield or craton in the southern portion of the West African Craton. The shield is in part overlaid by gold-bearing Birimian formations.

Geography and Geology

The shield covers the countries Ivory Coast, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. this shield, a large portion of the WAC consists of Paleoproterozoic Birimian continent margins.

The Birimian units were initially produced in an immature volcanic arc setting, which was later metamorphosed during the Eburnean orogeny. The poor exposure of the greenstone belt in the area limits interpretations of a broad structural context. The limited greenstone belt exposure indicates a major deformation event associated with granitoid intrusions. The shield hosts world-class gold deposits, important iron ore concentrations, and the mineralization of aluminum ore, lead-zinc, manganese, phosphate, and uranium. A majority of the gold deposit formations occurred during the Eburnean orogeny, but a number of the remaining gold deposits formed before this orogeny during a period of oceanic arc-back-arc basin formation and erosion during the Neoproterozoic and Cretaceous.

See also

External links

  • Mason, Robert, ed. (1992), Basement tectonics 7 : proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Basement Tectonics, held in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, August 1987, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, ISBN 0-7923-1582-0
  • Virginia Heffernan (August 2008), , Earth Explorer, archived from on 2020-06-09
  • Haggerty, S. E., Hills, D. V., & Toft, P. B. (1987-07-13), "Crustal Evolution and the Eclogite to Granulite Phase Transition in Xenoliths from the West African Craton", Workshop on the Growth of Continental Crust, University of Massachusetts: 68, Bibcode:{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Imrich Kusnir (1999), (PDF), Acta Montanistica Slovaca, 4: 311–318
  • Thomas Schlüter (2006-01-16), Geological Atlas of Africa: Liberia, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, doi:
  • , West Africa Exploration Initiative, archived from on 2011-07-22
  • (PDF), AMIRA International Limited, June 2006[permanent dead link]
  • E.I. Nikolenko; V.P. Afanasiev (2008), (PDF), Russian Academy of Sciences, archived from (PDF) on 2016-03-03
  • , Minerals Commission (Ghana)