Fuzzy AHP method in GIS for determine well drill locations within the Naysian Copper prospectivity

Due to costly and time consuming of the drilling operation، this task is high risk process and very critical and for any mineral exploration study. To determine optimized location for drilling locations، it is necessary to use geographic information system، GIS to perform the mineral potential mapping using integration of all available exploration information. Various methods have been developed for performing the mineral potential mapping at the present. Among those methods، the analytic hierarchy (AHP) method is very efficient and popular. Regarding to nature of geological and exploration information، combination of the AHP method and the Fuzzy logic resulted a new method called Fuzzy analytic hierarchy (FAHP). In this study، GIS is applied as significant and useful technology for management of the mineral exploration information is one the most important approach which has been used generally for mineral exploration and also the data integration to the mineral potential Map for a given prospect. Here، the Naysian copper prospect located in the Uromieh-Dokhtar Volcanic belt، in Esfahan province is used as case study. The main aim of this study is to determine optimized drilling location using FAHP methods. To produce geological، geochemical factor maps، all available data of the Naysian copper Prospect have been collected and analyzed. FAHP and geological expertise from different geologists are used to calculate weight for each exploration data layer. Fuzzy operators have been applied for integrating data layer in GIS. Finally، the Mineral potential maps and drilling locations resulted from this study is evaluated using previous study and drilled wells. Our evaluation indicates a comprehensive and positive correlation between suggested drilling locations resulted from this study and the previous drillings.