Application of geometric average approach for Cu-porphyry prospectivity mapping in the Baft area, kerman

The Baft district in Kerman province is located in the southeastern segment of the Urumieh-Dokhtar magmatic arc. This arc is characterized by thick accumulations of Cenozoic plutonic and volcanic rocks and provide favorable conditions to the development of hydrothermal systems and mineral deposition, in particular porphyry copper mineralization. For mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM) to delineate prospective areas some individual maps of evidence including distance to intrusive contacts, fault density, distance to hydrothermal alterations and multi-element geochemical signature were generated. Spatial evidence values in each map were transformed using a logistic function of unbounded values into the [0,1] range. Thus continuous maps of fuzzy evidence layers were integrated using geometric average function. To evaluate results of final potential map a data-driven prediction-area was used. The results showed that for the geometric average prospectivity model, 87% of the known mineral occurrences are predicted in 13% of the study area. Hence, this method can be utilized for mineral prospectivity mapping to delineate target areas for further exploration of a certain deposit-type.