Big data analytics for mining geochemistry of gold mineralization: The Gandy gold deposit, the Toroud-Chah Shirin (TCS) belt, north Iran

Abstract

Due to the complexity of the gold element, the mineralogical and geochemical investigations are significant to trace the gold behavior in sedimentary, metamorphic, magmatic, and post-magmatic processes and to identify the physicochemical conditions (i.e., pH, Eh, temperature, pressure) of concentration in the ore bodies. The trace elements may be concentrated as the primary or secondary haloes in endogenic and exogenic deposits with multi-formational types. Identification and separation of multi-formational geochemical halos associated with ore bodies have been the most significant challenge of gold deposits. Mining Geochemistry and Big Data analytics have become essential to identify the multi-formational geochemical anomalies for gold exploration in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. During the last three decades, pattern recognition techniques such as Bayesian and Geochemical spectra have been used to determine mineralogical and geochemical types of multi-formational anomalies. Big Data analytics has been used for integrating multi-type geoscience data and pattern recognition techniques to assess geochemical anomalies. In this study, Big Data analytics were used to generate the mineralogical and geochemical type (MGT) quantitative models based on the Bayesian, geochemical spectrum and hybrid methods for investigating the distribution of trace element contents of pyrite, galena, and sphalerite in the Gandy Gold Deposit, the Toroud-Chah Shirin (TCS) belt, north Iran. The multi-formational geochemical anomalies associated with gold mineralization in the Gandy deposit indicated a multi-MGT anomaly superposition, which is a combination of two MGTs: Au + Polymetals and Au + sulfide. The results of this study demonstrated a new perspective on the distribution of geochemical anomalies and the multi-MGT geochemical modeling for gold exploration in the TCS belt. Consequently, the instigated approach is greatly conceivable and applicable to reveal contrasting near-ore multi-formational geochemical haloes for gold exploration in many other metallogenic provinces.