GIS as a tool for mineral exporation in Kenya

Abstract

Kenya has a rich reserve of various minerals and natural resources. Only a small amount of minerals have been discovered in selected parts of Kenya. There is a need to further explore our rich country in order to maximize on its potential. Mineral exploration is the best way of discovering minerals on earth and as such it’s very crucial to make it as quick and efficient as possible. Among the ways of doing this is use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to assist in interpretation and manipulation of various multi-disciplinary geoscientific data and information that is available to a geologist. This project was aimed at finding out what GIS entails and why Kenya should embrace this technology in order to maximize on its mining capabilities which will help this country grow and move to a middle-income country by 2030. Methodology used for this project was mainly by literature reviews. The case study used was from Rajasthan, India where GIS was GIS was used to classify geological units in S.E Rajasthan to discriminate the lithology and structures found and delineate the associated zones for mineral exploration by Suneel K Joshi and Prof. R. Annadurai. Various geological data exists in Kenya but the problem is accesses to this data and approaches to integrate the available data. If Kenya embraced the right technology, exploration productivity and prospecting capabilities would be greatly improved.