Potential of Chakdara granite gneiss for fluorite mineralization, an assessment study, district Dir, northern Pakistan
Abstract
Chakdara granite gneiss, covering an area of 60 km2, is located north of Malakand granite. Its eastern part has been investigated for fluorite mineralization. During this investigation 18 occurrences of fluorite were found in association with blue beryl. The important occurrences are present at Chatpat, Jaba Banda and Badwan localities as fracture fillings in sheared zones in granite gneiss, in pegmatites and in younger batches of albitized friable granite. Subsurface investigation, of fluorite bearing zones at Chatpat and Jaba Banda, through shallow trenching and drilling reveals that these occur in the form of small pods with swelling and pinching characters and do not make any significant and viable economic fluorite deposit for large scale mining and exploitation. However, fluorite occurrences of Badwan valley located in zones of sericitic alteration are of economic significance due to their large size.
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