Lirim Hoxha, 2011
Embedded Files
Geologist of ore deposits and regional geology of Albania with a particular expertise in tectonics.
With very long experience in exploration of world rank chromite and Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposits hosted by Albanian ophiolites and regional geology.
In the Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposits of the Albanian ophiolites are discovered more than 66 Mt sulphide Cu, pyrite/Zn and Cu, Zn, Au, Ag and pyrite ores.
50 Mt (75%) Cu, Zn, Au, Ag and pyrite ores hosted by the Supra subduction (SSZ)-type rocks, mainly volcanic, as well as, in gabbroid plutons, plagiogranite-quartzdiorite intrusions and sheeted dyke complex of the Eastern Ophiolite Belt (EOB); 11 Mt (17%) of Cu, Pyrite/Zn and Au ores hosted by MORB-type basaltic pillow lavas of the Western Ophiolite Belt (WOB) volcanics, and 5.3 Mt (8%) as a huge tectonic slide in the melange.
Compared with idealised ophiolite and lithologic and intact sequences of Cyprus and Semail ophiolite, as well as, all previously published ophiolite columns of Albania, the ophiolite sections are highly dismembered by westward directed poly-phase thrusting tectonics units, creating high possibilities for substantial extension of new ores against known ores (Hoxha, 2014,).
World known Bulqiza Ultramafic massif that covers an area of c. 350 sq km, hosting the principal mined ores (Bulqiza-Batra,Thekna etc. with more than 22.6 Mt @ 40% Cr2 O3 mined ores) belongs to the Eastern Ophiolite Belt (EOB) of Albanian Ophiolites.
In the structural point of view Bulqiza-Batra chromite deposit has been widely accepted to be hosted by an ENE-verging anticlinorium of the first-order fold structure, with second-order folds, 4.5 km long, 1.2 km to 1.5 km wide and 0.5 to 1.7 km down dip with an axial orientation strike 3300, restricted in the strike by a crosswise abrupt flexural fault, bounded by a normal fault in the west and an eastward directed thrust in the east.
Later on structural setting of the chromite mineralization in the Bulqiza-Batra system described as secondary fold within west-dipping homocline (Hoxha, 2007 and quoted reference) displaced by thrust faults (Hoxha, 2009, 2012) and Bulqiza-Batra cusp /anticlinorium, in strike, broken apart by a combined strike-slip-and-normal/step faults responsible for Bulqiza valley shape, and in the west by east directed normal faults (Hoxha, 2015). All these set of tectonics have determined the extension of chromite mineralization, doing Bulqiza Massif with a very high potential for exploration of high grade and Cr : Fe ratio more than comparable to the world known stratified-type chromite deposits.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse