PhD student
Centre for Exploration Targeting (CET)
Contact details
Address
Robert Street Building, Rm 205
Centre for Exploration Targeting (CET)
The University of Western Australia (M006)
35 Stirling Highway
CRAWLEY WA 6009
Australia
Phone
+61 8 6488 7152
Email
21032365@student.uwa.edu.au
Denis’s interest in Geology appeared during high school with the first courses of natural sciences. Following this track, he decided to go to the University of Saint-Etienne in the small French town where he comes from, which specializes in volcanology. A few years after it was already the end of his Bachelors degree and time to think of which branch of geology to do for his career. The decision of metallogeny became obvious because of the possible collaboration with industrial sponsors and his passion for travelling. He decided to complete his Masters degree in mineral raw materials with a major in metallogeny within the Nancy University (France). His MsC project, supervised by Anne-Sylvie André-Mayer (G2R, Nancy, France) and Laurie Reisberg (CRPG, Nancy, France), was about the gold deposit of Inata, Burkina Faso. The aim of this MsC was to provide a well constrain age of the mineralization using the Re-Os isotopic datation on sulfides. His wish for an international experience and his interest in the gold systems led him to complete a PhD.
The title of Denis’s PhD project is: “4D modeling of the geometry and genesis of the giant Obuasi gold deposit, Ghana”.
The Obuasi deposit is located in the western margin of the Ashanti belt, Ghana. This paleoproterozoïque belt is well known for hosting a number of large gold deposits such as Prestea-bogoso, Tarkwa and the largest in West Africa, with a total of >60Moz of gold, Obuasi. The exploitation of Obuasi began in 1897 and is now run by AngloGold Ashanti Ltd, which is the sponsor for this research. The deposit has a strike extent of 10 km, has been mined in areas to >1.6km, and is currently being delineated below this depth. However, the genesis of the deposit remains controversial, with various timings of mineralization and structural controls having been proposed.
It is a challenging project because of the extreme dimension of this deposit and the complexity of the structural and hydrothermal events. The aim is to use a large range of tools such as structural interpretation, geophysics, 3D computer modeling, geochemistry, geochronology, petrology and fluids characterization combined with previous studies to well constrain the formation of this giant gold occurrence.
At a larger scale this project is part of the WAXI project (West African Exploration Initiative) which is a consortium between industrial sponsors and world class researchers who are collaborating for a better understanding of the West African geology and gold mineralization process.