Magnetic Mapping for Delineating Structures Favorable to Uranium Mineralization in Dhofar Region, Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

The Proterozoic basement is a potential host for uranium mineralization and therefore the probability of occurrence of uranium is highly likely in the Dhofar region of southern Oman. The crystalline basement of the Salalah area (Dhofar, Sultanate of Oman) is the largest area of Proterozoic basement of the Arabian-Nubian Shield which outcrop in Oman. It is because, the most productive parts of the crust for uranium exploration and production in the world are in similarly aged i,e Proterozoic rocks. Further, the area is heavily faulted and some of these faults have already been identified as the place of uranium enrichment. Also, the fault systems must have acted as fluid conduits for circulating waters scooping up uranium from deeper formations and carrying it to higher levels along the fault plane and also distributing it near the surface. Random sampling of gamma ray spectroscopy has revealed a concentration of uranium as much as 30-35 ppm which was substantiated by XRF analysis near the study area. And therefore, the interest lies in investigating the uranium mineralized subsurface structuers. Accordingly, total magnetic fields along eleven traverses were recorded at an approximate line interval of 20 m with a measurement interval of 10 m in the study area close to Yemen border. The acquired data was subjected to regional residual separation to decipher low frequency signals related to deep anomalies and also residual component to depict high frequency shallow seated small features. The computed amplitude of analytical signal indicates the precise spatial location of subsurface sources. Further, estimated depth to source based on Euler deconvolution (ED) and Fourier spectral analysis are found to be in the range of < 15m - > 60 m. The salient features of the analysis highlighting the outcome are presented.