Petrology And Geochemistry Of Barite Mineralisation Around Azara North Central Nigeria

ABSTRACT The Azara barite deposits formed parts of Middle Benue Trough which is located in an elongated rift or faulted-bounded mega structural depression trending NE-SW to a length of over 1000 km and a width of 100 km.Petrological and geochemical investigations of Azrara barite deposits were carried out. Eight 8 selected samples of barites were collected from the veins four from known veins V1V3V17 and V 18 and four from new veins VAVBVCand VD werecarried out with the aim of determining their mineralisation potentials using petrographic studies and gravimetric method of analyses. The Petrographic studies of some of the thin section of the samples conducted using a polarizing microscope to determine the contents distributions and textures of the various veins Table 1. The weight percentage composition of barite in the samples are V1 86.39 VC82.61 V1881.48 V3 81.17 V17 79.82 VA78.94 VB76.82 and VD 70.55 respectively. It is deduced from this work that the chemical weathering of the carbonates resulted in two distinct types of barites Barite associated with mainly quartz SiO2 and limonite FeOOH.nH2O as major gangue and barite with siderite Ferrous Carbonate with high amount of Mg ankerite Ca Fe Mg CO3 and Calcite CaCO3. The outcomes were compared with the barite specification of Weigal1937 of 95.00 and were found to be good for making drilling mud for use in the oil industry paints and other chemicals