Bi'r Jarbuah is a potential gold-bearing site located east of the Ishmas gold district in the southeastern part of the Arabian Shield. Surface rocks are mostly diorite and granodiorite plutons and the metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks they have intruded. Extensive thin alluvial deposits cover approximately 40 percent of the area studied. Diorite, granodiorite, aplite porphyry, granite, granite pegmatite, and mafic dikes intrude the plutons and the metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks. Veins of quartz, carbonate materials, and associated carbonate-altered rocks containing limonite and hematite cut all rock types. The veins were extensively mined by ancient people, and recent trenching has revealed small amounts of free gold associated with these veins and adjacent altered country rocks.
A detailed search for gold and associated minerals was begun in the Bi'r Jarbuah area in 1988. Crone electromagnetic (CEM), magnetic, and gravimetric surveys were run in the areas of greatest interest. Anomalous areas are most interesting in the southern part of the area where linear magnetic and gravity anomalies trend east-northeast and overlap in large part. They are most prominent at or near the south end of a diorite pluton where some quartz veins mined by the ancients also trend northeast. A second area, at the extreme southern end of the survey, contains a large CEM anomaly that coincides with northeast-trending magnetic and gravity anomalies. Although this second area is largely overlain by alluvium, a major quartz vein strikes to the northeast in the adjacent bedrock.
