Rising global demand for metals is driving growth in mineral exploration, but the discovery of new ore deposits is becoming increasingly challenging as mining expands. Mineral systems are tightly related to zones of accumulated deformation, or shear zones,  in the continental crust. Although these shear zones are extensively studied in modern orogens their tectonic significance in ancient terrains such as cratons remains poorly understood. 

The Tanzania Craton in East Africa is a significant Archean domain that hosts some of the world's most endowed gold deposits, which are intimately associated with deformation-driven ductile processes. Yet, the relationships between strain localisation, partitioning of the deformation through space and time, fluid circulation and gold mineralisation in the Tanzania Craton remain elusive. 

GAIA aims to provide quantitative constraints on deformation in three-dimensions (3D) integrated with a high-resolution petrostructural, rheological and thermodynamic analysis of selected shear zones in the Tanzania Craton. GAIA innovative approach is fundamental to unveiling shear zone nucleation and growth in orogen-scale anastomosed systems typical of Archean terrains and their potential for driving fluids and hosting ore deposits. 

GAIA, taking the case study of the Victorian Goldfields in the Tanzania Craton, has the ambition to assess how strain and fluids are partitioned within complex shear systems through space and across dimensions. The results of GAIA will also impact our knowledge of paleo-fluid pulses in shear zones in developing mineralised systems to infer a link between actual seismicity in cratons as a signature of potentially newly forming mineral systems.