Integration of Research and Capacity Building

This three-year program follows on from and is a direct outcomes of Amira Global’s P934B “West African Exploration Initiative Stage 3” (WAXI 3) project.

Geographic scope
The whole of the Leo-Man Shield and its immediate surrounds; includes the following countries: Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Benin, Togo and Morocco

Why companies should support this project:
This project will benefit sponsor companies undertaking active exploration in West Africa, regardless of commodity. It will provide sponsors with:

• New and newly compiled shield-scale datasets in GIS formats ready for integration into company’s exploration targeting programs.
• First access to the latest ideas on the formation and reworking of the West African Craton and its margins in the context of mineralisation.
• Support from the next generation of company, academic and government personnel, thanks to the Capacity Building program.
• Preferential access to custom professional courses for their staff, using the latest techniques and ideas, and based on local datasets.

Benefits for sponsors:
• Immediate access to 15 years of geoscientific data from WAXI Programs 1-3, in the form of a 650Gb GIS database of exploration data
• Ground-breaking shield-scale geochronology and geochemistry
• Immediate access to WAXI 1-3 quarterly, annual and final reporting
• Immediate access to over 100 published articles on the West African Craton authored by the WAXI team
• Access to research whose breadth and detail far surpassed most companies’ ability and/or standard procedures
• Exclusive access to new and newly compiled metallogenic, metamorphic, isotopic, geochronological, structural stratigraphic and geochemical data acquired by the WAXI Stage 4 research modules
• Quarterly updates of project results, conceptual models and GIS-ready data
• Support for West African Universities and professional training programs to build a local capacity for training young geologists in the skills needed to address industry-relevant geoscientific problems
• Preferential access to industry-selected training courses for sponsor company personnel, held in the region, using local datasets. Quality and quantity of courses and training has a demonstrable impact on local geologists and employers.

The project as a whole will deliver:
WAXI 4 aims at furthering the work from the earlier stages of the WAXI program to unravel the making of mineral systems not only in the Birimian terranes, but also in the neighbouring Archean, Pan-African Meso-Proterozoic and Phanerozoic basins. The key overarching philosophy will be to characterise and evaluate the role of both the lithospheric and crustal architecture on the development of mineral systems through time. Just as the Archean may provide insights into the early architecture of the Birimian; we can study the Pan-African in the context of how Birimian systems

WAXI 2006 – 2018 Results