Potential mapping of porphyry copper deposits in the northwest of Kerman Cenozoic Magmatic Belt using remote sensing

There are several important deposits such as Kader, Iju, Godekolvari, Serenu and chahfiroozeh that are occurs in the Kerman Cenozoic Magmatic Belt (KCMB). The hydrothermal alterations usually are detected using remote sensing techniques to map porphyry copper deposits. This research used three ASTER images and applied band ratio, principal component analysis, crosta and composite images techniques to discriminate phylic, argillic and propylitic alteration zones. The present study investigated recent researches and introduced the best spectral bands for determining the alteration zones. The results showed that the spectral signature of kaolinite and sericite is the same and it is not easy to differentiate between phylic and argilic zones. But the used methods has an ability to discriminate partially propylitic alteration zone. Finally, crosta technique using bands 5, 6 and 7 presented the best classification for phylic and argilic alteration zones and composite image with RGB = (PC2, PC3, -PC4) detected the propylitic alteration zone.