Mineral prospectivity modelling to delineate potential areas for gold deposits: a case study of the Lupa goldfield, South West Tanzania
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Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Dodoma
Abstract
Conventional methods for exploring mineral deposits are becoming difficult to locate
undiscovered deposits because their capability to find out concealed ore deposits is
limited. New sophisticated methods are required for analyzing and integrating various
geoscience datasets to locate new deposits. The aim of this study is to delineate
prospective areas for gold deposits in the Lupa Goldfield by using weight of evidence
model. The weight of evidence is a data-driven method for mineral prospectivity
mapping that uses conditional probabilities to determine the relative importance of
individual layers of evidence. The method establishes a spatial relationship between
known mineral deposits and evidential maps to create a mineral prospectivity map. In
this study, four evidential maps derived from geochemical, geological, geophysical
and remote sensing datasets including a training sites layer of 64 mineral occurrences
were generated and integrated to produce mineral prospectivity map. The results of
this study indicate that; mafic and metamorphosed mafic rocks intruded by granitic
rocks, proximity to faults, presence of geochemical gold anomaly and high magnetic
anomaly were the primary geological features for recognizing gold mineralization in
the Lupa Goldfield. The model results have revealed 5 classes ranked from the highest,
high, medium, low and lowest favorability patterns with probability values; 0.051,
0.0426, 0.0225, 0.0172 and 0.0091 respectively. The highest favorable areas have the
best gold potentials based on the presence of predictor patterns from all the four
evidential maps. The model was evaluated and validated of which the results have
revealed that, the use of weight of evidence model is successful and useful to locate
prospective areas for gold deposits in the study area.
Description
Dissertation (MSc. in mineral exploration)
Keywords
Mineral prospectivity modelling, Gold deposits, Exploring mineral deposits, Mineral prospectivity mapping
Citation
Ngowi, Dickson E. (2023). Mineral prospectivity modelling to delineate potential areas for gold deposits: a case study of the Lupa goldfield, South West Tanzania. Dodoma; The university of Dodoma