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The West African Exploration Initiative (WAXI)

Australian Institute of Geoscientists > Events > exploration, West Africa > The West African Exploration Initiative (WAXI)

The West African Exploration Initiative (WAXI)


Geological Society of Australia WA Division technical talk presented by Prof. Mark Jessell, University of Western Australia (CET)

The West African Exploration initiative (WAXI) is a public-private partnership that brings together over forty of the major stakeholders in the domain of Minerals Exploration in West Africa:

  • The Government Surveys and Departments of Mines of 9 West African States (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo)
  • 4 West African Universities (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Senegal)
  • Researchers from 10 European and Australian Research Institutions
  • The Australian Government (Australian Agency for International Development and the Australian Research Council) and
  • AMIRA International, an independent association of minerals companies whichdevelops, brokers and facilitates collaborative research projects

The research program was designed after a process of consultation with industry in a preliminary phase during which a detailed data and information audit and gaps analysis was carried out. Accompanying this work was the development of an exploration GIS which has now expanded into a >200Gigabyte 150-layer online and static GIS database of metadata and data related to West African Geoscience that is available to member organisations. The resultant research program comprises a set of integrated research modules which are grouped into three themes: Architecture & Timing; Mineralising Systems; and Surface Processes.

Capacity building was recognised by all stakeholders as to be an important and integral part of the project. This is achieved through a dedicated module designed to provide training in exploration techniques via a suite of short courses, symposia and workshops. Attracting African students to undertake their projects as part of WAXI is integral to the capacity building module. The project supports directly or indirectly over 30 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, half of them from Africa.

This presentation will outline the principal activities and impacts of the project in the context of other regional and pan-African efforts in the Earth Sciences and the perspectives for the future of the project.

About the Speaker

Mark Jessell is currently a Winthrop Professor and Western Australian Fellow at the CET UWA, having recently arrived from France where he was a Directeur de Recherche with the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, where he started the WAXI project. His scientific interests revolve around microstructure studies, integration of geology and geophysics in 2 and 3D, and the tectonics and metallogenesis of the West African Craton.