Metallogenic geological background and major mineral resources in Morocco

The geological setting of Morocco is affected by three tectonic domains, including the West African Craton, the Atlantic and the Alps tectonic belt. It has undergone the long tectonic evolution and complex geological processes, including the tectonic evolution of West African Craton from the Archean to the early Neoproterozoic, the tectonic-magmatic activity during the Pan-African period, the rifting in West African Craton margin in early Paleozoic, the Hercynian orogeny and the tectonic activity during the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic. Under the control of this tectonic setting, most of the ore deposits in Morocco show the regular spatial and temporal distribution characteristics. Typically, some metal minerals such as Ag, Fe, U, Ta, Nb, Au, Cu and REE crop out in the Archean craton basement, the Eburnéen batholiths and the Pan-African tectonic belt; several of sedimentation type oolitic hematite deposits were formed during the Caledonian; some volcanogenic massive sulphide(VMS)Zn-Pb-Cu deposits and skarn type deposits occurred in the Hercynian; and the Alpine formed most of the phosphate deposits, the MVT type Pb-Zn deposits and the barite deposits, and so on. The sedimentary mineralization, magmatic-hydrothermal mineralization and tectonic-hydrothermal mineralization can be easily recognized in Morocco, and the main types of mineral resources are phosphate ore, silver ore, MVT Pb-Zn ore and barite ore.