Application of ANFIS-FCM method to salty gypsum mine exploration case study: Anar gypsum mine

Electrical conductivity increases in groundwater around the gypsum mines because of ions dissolution. this is a useful indicator in gypsum mines exploration, but not enough to that aim, so the elements with high concentrations involved in increasing EC should be identified. This study aims to investigate the efficiency of ANFIS-FCM method to exploration of salty gypsum mines using hydrogeochemical changes of groundwater, which was tested on a case: Anar salty gypsum mine. to this aim, 21 water samples were taken from wells across the plain and chemical analysis of samples was performed in the laboratory. Then, the resulted data were statistically analyzed and descriptive statistics of the data and correlation matrix of the studied parameters were obtained using SPSS software. Forming a data correlation matrix, it was found that in samples near the salty gypsum mine, some ions had the highest correlation with electrical conductivity (EC) including sodium, magnesium, calcium, manganese, selenium and lead, while the mentioned parameters had the highest correlation. The 6 mentioned elements selected as the model inputs and the electrical conductivity was the output according to purpose of the current research. After standardization, the data were entered into MATLAB and the electrical conductivity was predicted using ANFIS-FCM method. The measured electrical conductivity was used directly to compare with the electrical conductivity of the intelligent method. Based on the model results, the estimated electrical conductivity in the study area had very good accuracy and high correlation with the measured values. As a result, ANFIS-FCM intelligent method is an effective method to diagnose the salty gypsum mine. If this method is used in groundwater around other salty gypsum mines in Iran and a similar result be observed, its efficiency in diagnosing the salty gypsum mines is confirmed.