SURVEYING THE GONEA VILLAGE IN NAVRONGO

BRIEF INFO ABOUT GONEA

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Gonea is a small town situated in Navrongo within the Upper East Region of Ghana. It is characterized by dispersed settlement and has a small population. The weather here is quite extreme during seasons of hot and cold conditions. Also, the lands here are really flat as opposed to the undulating lands you would find in the southern parts of the country. This provides room for mechanical weathering to take place especially that of exfoliation.

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HOUSING

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Houses here are usually built with mud. This is because, mud is quite porous and adaptive. Hence, during a sharp rise in temperature, cool breeze is absorbed through the pore spaces of the mud walls and provides a soothing temperature for those inside. Similarly, in very cold conditions you would notice a warmth situation in these houses. Also, it is very affordable and quite easy to put up comparing it to that of the modernized way of building, yet it comes with a natural temperature-friendly environment.

Typical traditional house in the gonea community

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OCCUPATION

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Due to the vast nature of unoccupied lands in this area, various family heads are usually in charge of these lands. They in turn allocate portions of land to each of their households to start farming and produce some goods at the end of the season. Major plants that are grown in this community include ; sorgum, millet, rice and shea nut.

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These shea nut fruits are in turn used to make shea butter and its oil for wide scale distribution. At times you may even come across the young kids of this community peeling off the shea nut fruit and helping their folks with the processing.

• Shea butter is quite useful both in health as well as for good looks. This is because, during harsh weather conditions, we even smear this butter in order to keep our skin fresh and well moisturized.

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Making of Shea butter source

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LIFESTYLE

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Life in this community is quite simple. People here are not too stressed about the increase in prices of goods and services which would make them put in more hours at their various farm sites. There are even several people here who have not travelled outside the Navrongo community, the farthest place they have been to is Bolga (the capital of the region).

This makes them live a stress free live which usually involves chatting which friends under big trees and sipping palm wine on the side. Most of the people here even grew up together and know each other by name as well as their entire family. This fosters harmonious living and makes them to appreciate one another.

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A few locals of the Gonea community enjoying the shade of this tree and making some conversations

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ROCK TYPES

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The rocks here are mainly igneous rocks. These rocks have not been altered by heat or pressure and have not undergone any sedimentary processes such as lithification or compaction. This therefore creates the notion that they are igneous.

However, you may can find various structures in these rocks as you move around the area. One thing you are likely to see here are the various intrusions such as veins.

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Typical rocks found in this area

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Closer look at an igneous intrusion here

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BENEFITS OF THESE STRUCTURES

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Structures are very useful which is why there is a whole study for it: structural geology. This is because they help to unravel various mysteries of the earth that aid in several projects.

• Mineral exploration: Structures such as faulting, intrusions and folds are very useful as they provides useful information that can help explorers to trace the origin of these materials and identify the zones of mineralization.

• Finding underground water: Joints are place of contacts between two rocks meaning these rocks allow water to seep through them. However, once these rocks are found beneath the earth, there is most likely and impermeable rock lying beneath these rocks that serve as an quifer for water storage.

• Siting of quarries: Quarries are easily sited in areas where rocks exhibit such structures. This is because the rock's integrity has already been weakened naturally and requires less machinery/efforts to further disintegrate to get the gravels.

etc.

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Unless otherwise stated, all images are mine.

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