Fluid circulations at the Koudia El Hamra Ag deposit: new evidence from Raman

spectroscopy analysis.
Félix NSHIMIYIMANAa, Samira ESSARRAJa, Mohamed HIBTIa, Marie Christine BOIRONb, Michel
CATHELINEAUb, Christian MARIGNACc
a
Laboratoire Géoressources, URAC 42, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, Université Cadi Ayyad, BP. 549,
Guéliz, Marrakech, Morocco.
b
GeoRessources, CREGU, Université de Lorraine, Faculté des Sciences, B.P. 70239, 54506, Vandoeuvre-lès-
Nancy Cedex, France
c
UMR 7359-Géoressources, Université de Lorraine, Ecole des Mines, Campus ARTEM-CS 14234, 54042 Nancy
cedex-France
Correspondence: nfelix2020@yahoo.com, essarrajsamira@yahoo.fr, m.hibti@gmail.com

The Koudia El Hamra Ag deposit (Central Jebilet, Morocco) consists of quartz-carbonate

veins hosted in the Sarhlef schist, deformed and metamorphosed in the Upper-Visean
Namurian (Huvelin, 1977). The ores consist of base metal and Ag minerals in quartz-chlorite
and carbonates veins.Three fluid inclusion (FI) types have been distinguished by
microthermometry:(i) one phase carbonic FI (Vc),(ii) high salinity brine FI (Lws) (three
phases: L+V+halite cube, >60 % H2O) and (iii) aqueous dominated two-phase FI (Lw) (vapor
phase: 10-40%) with moderate to low salinities (Nshimiyimana et al., 2015a, 2015b).

The present study consisted of Raman spectroscopy analyses of those fluid inclusions and has
shown that:
- Vc FI are dominated by N2 (58 to 63 mol%), followed by CH4 (33 to 38mol%) with minor
amount of CO2 (around 4mol%).
- Lws FI show a vapor phase dominated by CH4 (49 to 64 mol%) followed by N2 (36 to 51
mol%),CO2 has not been detected.
- Lw FI with vapor phase dominated by N2 (73 to 75 mol%) followed by CH4 (25 to 27 mol
%) but no CO2 has been detected.
The N2-CH4 ± CO2 vapor fluid (Vc) is roughly similar to N2-CH4 fluids documented in the
Central Jebilet (Bastoul, (1992); Essarraj et al., (2017)) and interpreted as resulting from the
metamorphism of the Sarhlef formations (Bastoul, 1992) previous to the circulation in the
schist of aqueous fluids from external origin (Essarraj et al., 2017). Thus, the small amounts
of gases detected in the aqueous fluids seem resulting from their mixing with N2-CH4± CO2
metamorphic gases present in the host Sarhlef schist.

 BASTOUL, A.(1992)- Unpublished thesis (thèse d’état), Nancy I University, 311p.

 ESSARRAJ S. et al. (2017)-JAES, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2016.07.020
 HUVELIN P. (1977)-Notes Mém. Serv. Géol. Maroc, No 232 bis.
 NSHIMIYIMANA F. et al.(2015a)- 3MA9, Agadir-Taroudant, 2-4 April 2015.
 NSHIMIYIMANA F. et al. (2015b)-13th SGA Biennial meeting, Nancy-France, 24-27 August
2015.