Geology and U-Th-Pb Dating of the Gakara REE Deposit, Burundi

Seconde Ntiharirizwa (1) , Philippe Boulvais (1) , Marc Poujol (1) , Yannick Branquet (2, 1, 3) , Cesare Morelli (4) , Joël Ntungwanayo (4) , Gilbert Midende (5)

1 GR - Géosciences Rennes
2 ISTO - Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orléans - UMR7327
3 Métallogénie - UMR7327
4 Rainbow Rare Earths
5 Université du Burundi

The Gakara Rare Earth Elements (REE) deposit is one of the world’s highest grade REE deposits, likely linked to a carbonatitic magmatic-hydrothermal activity. It is located near Lake Tanganyika in Burundi, along the western branch of the East African Rift. Field observations suggest that the mineralized veins formed in the upper crust. Previous structures inherited from the Kibaran orogeny may have been reused during the mineralizing event. The paragenetic sequence and the geochronological data show that the Gakara mineralization occurred in successive stages in a continuous hydrothermal history. The primary mineralization in bastnaesite was followed by an alteration stage into monazite. The U-Th-Pb ages obtained on bastnaesite (602 ± 7 Ma) and on monazite (589 ± 8 Ma) belong to the Pan-African cycle. The emplacement of the Gakara REE mineralization most likely took place during a pre-collisional event in the Pan-African belt, probably in an extensional context

Keywords: Gakara; Burundi; U-Th-Pb dating; REE deposit; bastnaesite; monazite

Domains: Geochemistry

Seconde Ntiharirizwa, Philippe Boulvais, Marc Poujol, Yannick Branquet, Cesare Morelli, et al.. Geology and U-Th-Pb Dating of the Gakara REE Deposit, Burundi. Minerals, 2018, 8 (9), pp.394. ⟨10.3390/min8090394⟩. ⟨insu-01870388⟩