Vavatenina
PAMM's Vavatenina Project, located approximately two hundred and forty kilometers northeast from Antananarivo,
occurs within the central east coastal province of Toamasina. The project comprises fifty-four contiguous
squares and the area under tenure totals three hundred square kilometers. Project title is one hundred
percent (100%) in the name of PAMM.
Access
Access to the project is east from Antananarivo along the Route Nationale-2, for a distance of two hundred
and fifty kilometers to the provincial capital of Toamasina, then north and west along the Route Nationale-2
and then Route Nationale-22, for a distance of approximately one hundred and twenty-five kilometers to the
project area. The licensed area occurs immediately north from the town of Vavatenina. Project infrastructure
is considered excellent.
The Vavatenina Project occurs towards the southeastern end of the north–south trending Beforona–Aladira
Belt (Besairie, 1973). The Beforona–Aladira Belt extends for over four hundred kilometers and varies to
thirty-five kilometers in width. Rock types within the Belt are dominated by granitic migmatite and
amphibolite, and have been assigned to the 2.7 to 3.0 Ga System du Vohibory (Besairie, 1966, 1973).
From the Service des Mines Carte Miniere et des Indices (1956 ; Direction de la Geologie Library,
Antananarivo), the Vavatenina Mineral Field presents as an extensive alluvial gold field with a documented
history of over one hundred years of continuous alluvial gold production.
An excerpt from Besairie (1966) follows:
"Vavatenina. The production of the Vavatenina region, between Fénérive and the
Alaotra Lake has been notable in the past. One notes forty kilograms in six months in 1902 but a
great reduction from 1904. It recovered temporarily from 1941 with 3.6 kilograms in 1941, 8.8
kilograms in 1942, and 11 kilograms in 1944. The geological environment is characterised by the
predominance of the micaschists a biotite, sometimes with disthène, and their inhibition by numerous
very ramified veins of pegmatite, and interstratified quartz – feldspar veins corresponding to a front
of migmatites.
All the streams are more or less gold bearing, with an average fineness of 950. The deposits are composed
of ancient terrace alluvials, the alluvial sediments of the bank, the marshy flats and the current river
sands. The sediments of the well positioned banks have especially been worked, they are irregular, intermittent
with often a strong sterile recovery (cover ?). The river sands are generally well grouped and easier to
exploit than the banks, they are drowned and can be worked only in the dry season." (finish excerpt).
"There is no identified single or dominant source to the alluvial gold within the Vavatenina
Mineral Field. Rather, erosion of the mineralized basement over a significant area has produced
the alluvial gold."
.......and from Besairie (1949) :
"Gold Origin and Method of Deposit (for the Vavatenina Goldfield).
One would find with difficulty, in the Vavatenina region, a fleuve, a river or a stream, whose banks or
even the bed are not more or less gold bearing. So it's in the whole micaschists (basement) that the
gold is shared out, and it is in the erosion and the washing of this (basement mineralisation) forming
which has enriched and still enriches currently the stream alluvials." (finish excerpt).
As a direct consequence of the lack of a single or dominant basement source for the alluvial gold,
the Vavatenina Mineral Field offers potential for the occurrence of numerous zones of auriferous gravels.
The Vavatenina Project has potential to host a significant alluvial gold resource, and generation of an
alluvial gold dredging operation is the exploration and mining objective.
