“…The Guiana Shield (Fig. 1A) in South America is an important mineral province hosting significant gold resources which are attractive for the exploration of gold deposits (Voicu et al, 2001;Milesi et al, 2003;Daoust et al, 2011;Velasquez et al, 2014;Tedeschi et al, 2018a;Guiraud et al, 2020, Combes et al, 2021. However, due to its low latitude geographic position, the Guiana Shield is covered mainly by a well-developed regolith and equatorial rainforest, representing a challenging environment for exploration (Freyssinet et al, 1989(Freyssinet et al, , 2005Butt, 1998;Butt et al, 2000;Anand & Butt, 2010;Theveniaut & Freyssinet, 2002;Butt, 2015;Sunkari et al, 2019).…”