The Geita Greenstone Belt (GGB) hosts several world-class shear-hosted Archaean lode gold deposits and forms the northern portion of the regional Sukumaland Greenstone Belt, itself one of several belts that comprise the Lake Victoria Goldfields. Other gold mines hosted in the Lake Victoria Goldfields include Golden Pride, Bulyanhulu, Tulawaka, Buzwagi and North Mara.
The east-west oriented GGB is 60km in length, up to 15km wide. The Geita terrain is comprised of upper- to mid-Nyanzian greenschist facies units, made up of clastic sediments, black shales, banded iron formation (BIF) and volcaniclastics. These have been intruded by a variety of felsic to mafic intrusive bodies, dykes and sills. Regional north-northeasterly structures hosting Proterozoic gabbro dykes are also prominent geological features in the area.
North-west trending deformation corridors divide the GGB into three distinct sub-terrains, namely the Nyamulilima Terrain in the west (hosting the Star and Comet, Ridge 8 and Roberts deposits), the Central Terrain in the central part (hosting the Nyankanga, Geita Hill, Lone Cone and Chipaka deposits) and the Kukuluma Terrain to the north-east (hosting the Matandani, Kukuluma and Area 3 West deposits).
Geita’s gold mineralisation is preferentially hosted in BIF, cherts and ironstones that have been affected by both ductile and brittle deformation associated with shear zones. The shears exploit fold axial planes as well as the contacts ........
