Gold Deposits in Nasser High Dam Reservoir, South Egypt
摘要
Nasser High Dam in Aswan is an architectural construction to save Egyptians from the high and low flood seasons. The Blue Nile is the source of the majority of the water downstream in the Nile, as well as suspended materials including sand, silt, clay, and organic matter, whereas the White Nile is typically regards as the headwaters stream. However, at Dal Cataract, suspended materials were suddenly sedimented, forming a main sedimentation area 150 km long until Wadi El Arab. Two prospects in this sedimentation area are silver-gold bearing; Prospect I (from Malik El Nasser to South Murshid) exhibits higher silver and gold concentrations compared to Prospect II, extending from South Murshid to north Amka. The amount of bottom sediments in both prospects for the period 1964–1993 (30 years) is about 2539 million cubic meters, and the amount of bottom sediments in this area for the period 1964–2023 (59 years) is 3385 million cubic meters. The heaviest concentration of gold is recorded in the main sedimentation area in the highly magnetic fractions with 0.125–0.063 mm grain size, while north of the main sedimentation area; the heaviest concentration of gold is recorded in the highly magnetic fractions of grain size 0.25–0.125 mm. The ancient seven distributaries of the old delta deposited the Nile water suspended in matter bearing gold along the Mediterranean, and connected lakes Mariout, Idku, Burullus, and Manzala formed thick deltaic sediments. Besides, Nile water via Bahr Yussef has similar thick deltaic sediments in Qarun Lake via two inlets (El-Bats and El-Wadi) and surrounding areas. Both stretches are to be considered promotional targets for exploration for placer gold. In both sites, gold is actually separated from the black sand, as well as an estimated 9.2 ppm of gold in the stratigraphic composite log 2.7 m thick formed upon total dryness of the storage bond 2/2 of Amysal Company. The geometric mean for expected reserves of the late six decades for gold is 815.302 tons, and for silver it is 322.934 tons. Expected future hazards are that the Nile River current by the year 2030 ± will probably be hindered by the natural silting and/or damming in the El-Dawishat great cataract area and will not flow in its present course but will deviate from the Nile River natural flow, where the water probably may generally be dissipated over a wider area. The Ethiopian Dam will most probably play a more harmful role by decreasing the amount and rate of flow of water stored by the dam.