Abstract
The Southern Jiangxi Province (SJP) hosts one of the best known districts of tungsten deposits in the world. Delineating spatial complexities of geological features and their controls on regional-scale tungsten mineralization by using an integrated fractal and weights-of-evidence (WofE) method can provide insights into the understanding of ore genesis and facilitate further prospecting in this area. The box-counting fractal analysis shows that most of the tungsten occurrences are distributed in regions with high fractal dimensions of faults and fault intersections, suggesting ore-forming favorability of areas with highly complex structural patterns. The WofE-derived indices are employed to quantitatively measure the controls of analyzed features on mineralization, which illustrate that tungsten anomalies, faults, Yanshanian granites, and manganese anomalies have high contrast values, implying a spatially strong correlation of these features with tungsten occurrences. In particular, high manganese anomalies in host rock may provide a novel indication for mineral prospecting in this area. A predictive map is extracted based on the combination of fractal and WofE results, providing intuitive guides for future prospectivity in this area. Regions identified by high posterior probability in conjunction with high fractal dimensions of both faults and fault intersections are evaluated as the most favorable targets.
Highlights
Mineral deposits are formed by nonlinear coupling of various geological processes and conditioned by controls that favor their formation [1,2,3]
The spatial association between certain geological features and tungsten mineralization in the Southern Jiangxi Province (SJP) is investigated with the help of fractal analysis and the WofE method
The fractal box-counting analyses of faults and fault intersections indicate that most of the tungsten occurrences in the SJP are distributed in those regions with high fractal dimensions, implying significant controls of fault complexity on tungsten mineralization
Summary
Mineral deposits are formed by nonlinear coupling of various geological processes and conditioned by controls that favor their formation [1,2,3]. The geological features genetically associated with ore-forming processes can provide significant information relevant to understanding ore genesis and facilitating mineral exploration by focusing prospective targets on regions where these favorable features are concentrated [3,4,5]. Such spatial associations, being the end-products of complex coupled processes, are themselves complicated, and overlain by numerous random influences, temporal alteration, and/or spatial deviation [6]. Some emerging quantitative methods, including fractal analysis and the weights-of-evidence (WofE) approach, are much more powerful than traditionally empirical descriptive methods because of their geological informative abundance, depictive precision, and practical flexibility [1,10,11].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call