Project :: Ben Ben
Gold
Bomi / Montserado
The Ben Ben prospect, part of the Bomi license, is actually located on the eastern side of the St Paul River in Montserado County, about 15 km east of Liberty’s Mandingo Hill prospect. The property is only about an hours drive from the capital of Monrovia and is a potential gold prospect.
Alluvial mining has occurred in the low lying regions around the hill by Ben Ben village for many years but when locals began to dig down into mineralized veins in the hard rock on top of the mountain in 2005 it resulted in a mini gold rush.
Locals from several surrounding villages lined up to receive a share of the extracted material and then would crush and grind it by hand to retrieve the gold which continued until the near surface veins pinched out or the digging by hand was considered too difficult.
The Ben Ben Prospect area is underlain by granitic gneisses, dolerite and granodiorite intrusives.
The dolerite outcrops in a few areas of the license. The granodiorite observed is slightly weathered. The in situ material observed on the wall of the artisanal mining pits is weathered and mixed up with melanocratic granitic gneiss. However, the intrusive diorite is fairly fresh as compared to the basement Archæan granite gneisses.
The rocks in the area dip moderately to the west and generally trend NE - SW. The structurally deformed granitic gneiss has been observed to carry gold mineralization as seen from the artisanal mining site. Occasionally, hematite and pyrite serve as pathfinders for gold mineralization in the area. The area is bisected by NW – SE trending faults and Jurassic-age diabase dikes.
During 2009, a regional 400m x 50m grid is planned to be cut and sampled on the Ben Ben Prospect to determine if there are any significant gold – in – soil anomalies.
