Ranking of geochemical samples by characteristic analysis and VIKOR methods for identifying mineralization areas

The analysis of geochemical samples of several elements and the relevance of the location and extent of mineralization area in an exploration region with the mineralization, pathfinder and indicator elements, makes it possible to determine the composite anomaly (multi-element anomaly) on a single element. The purpose of this paper is to introduce ranking methods for the determination of composite geochemical anomalies. For this purpose, three ranking methods namely that of characteristic analysis, VIKOR and FDAHP-VIKOR methods are used. 365 geochemical samples taken in the epithermal Ag-Au Chah-Zard deposit have also been used. Ranking results in R mode indicate that As criterion is the most important element related to mineralization and Au, Ag and Sb elements take the next positions. Also, the ranking of geochemical samples show that the anomalies obtained from all three methods are similar to cumulative anomalies. The result obtained with the FDAHP-VIKOR algorithm is due to conformity of the location and extent of the anomaly area with the geochemical anomalies of the main mineralization elements, Ag and Au elements, and the median area of this range, as compared to the other two methods which is introduced as a potential mineralization area. An area of 0.42 Km2 is proposed for the design of a borehole drilling network in a detailed exploration phase and a smaller area of 0.10 Km2 within it is proposed for designing a density drilling network. Therefore, ranking methods can be introduced as a new method for determining the composite anomalies.