Structural controls on granitoid-hosted gold mineralization and paleostress history of the Edikan gold deposits, Kumasi Basin, southwestern Ghana

The >9 Moz total aggregate gold endowment at the Edikan mine, Kumasi Basin, Ghana, is contained within a cluster of orogenic gold deposits located along the Akropong fault zone. The granitoid-hosted orebodies at Edikan (e.g., AG2, AG3, Fobinso, Esuajah), essentially an interconnected mesh of gold-bearing quartz veins, formed during deformation event D-3Edk, which postdates the penetrative regional D-2Edk deformation. The gold-bearing quartz veins developed in, and adjacent to, N-S- and NW-SE-trending, low-angle thrust faults that crosscut lithological contacts and earlier formed, steeply dipping D-2Edk faults. Our paleostress analysis shows that the D-3Edk deformation, during which the mineralized fault system developed, was characterized by a WNW-ESE "hybrid" compression that evolved to a strike-slip regime. This progressive deformation is best described with the following stress regimes: WNW-ESE transpression-pure compression (T1) associated with low-angle thrusting, subsequent transpression-strike-slip (T2), and later strike-slip-transtension (T3) associated with steeply dipping strike-slip faulting. The bulk of the granitoid-hosted gold mineralization at Edikan is associated with two principal sets of gold-bearing quartz veins, including low-angle fault-fill veins controlled by thrusts and shallow dipping oblique-extension veins that developed during T1. The activation of the reverse and sinistral strike-slip faults led to the development of restraining jogs characterized by abundant shallow and steeply dipping gold-quartz veins with moderately NE-plunging ore shoots. The geometry of the mineralized fault-fracture meshes is consistent with fault-valve behavior in a horizontal compressive stress regime under sustained conditions of supralithostatic fluid pressures at low differential stress