Structural Setting of Western Mali Insights from Magnetic Data Analysis

Within the Western African Craton, the Kedougou-Kenieba Inlier lodges the Senegalo-Malian Shearing-Zone, with its secondary structures, control the gold mineralization. The magnetic method is of great interest in structures determination and characterization. Many techniques were applied to the airborne magnetic data (Field Residual, Reduction to Equator, Derivations, and Euler Deconvolution) in order to reveal magnetic structures related to mineralization. Lineaments of different directions (N–S, NE–SW, NW–SE and E–W) have been identified and coincided with the known faults and intermediate to basic magmatic dykes. These lineaments have low magnetic intensity signatures, generally negative. A large NE–SW overlapping corridor contains the majority of the Artisanal Mining Sites testifying the controllability of gold deposits by the NE–SW structures. Euler solution led to a brief estimate of the depth of different structures. This led to propose additional targets so as to help exploration activities in Western Mali.