Application of remote sensing and GIS techniques for exploring potential areas of hydrothermal mineralization in the central Eastern Desert of Egypt

Abstract

The integration of remotely sensed data allowed the successful characterization of the hydrothermal alteration zones of the Abu-Gaharish area in the Central Eastern Desert of Egypt using image transformation techniques. The integration of several evidential maps highlighted the plausible areas with high concentrations of argillic and phyllic, key hydrothermal minerals that reflect the intensity of hydrothermal effects and the probable sites of ore bodies. The excellent prospective zone identified in the map occupies around 1.39% of the study area. Kaolinite-smectite minerals with correlation scores of around 0.97 were consistent with areas of hydrothermal alteration and mining activities; however, propylitic minerals were confined to basic metavolcanics and serpentinites. The resulting predictive map was assessed using existing mining data with significant consistency; therefore, field verification is essential. The overall results showed that remotely sensed data represent a valuable mapping tool for geological and mineral resources reconnaissance in the arid regions ARTICLE HISTORY

Synergy of Remote Sensing Data for Exploring Hydrothermal Mineral Resources Using GIS-Based Fuzzy Logic Approach

“…This is because combining several prospective layers using GIS-based fuzzy overlay maximized the optimum area of mineral prospectively (Figure 9a). The process of combining multi-criteria considers that each GIS-layer is an evidential map that has prospective and non-prospective pixels [1,2,52]. Therefore, the produced map successfully characterized the plausible areas of hydrothermal mineral resources into six prospective zones-excellent, very high, high, moderate, low, and very low (Figure 9a).…”

“…(11.50-12.51 µm), 100 m (USGS website). Bands 6 and 7 have been successfully applied to characterize areas of hydrothermal alteration in different environments [1,2].…”

“…The mineral exploration process is typically carried out at different scales using various tools such as remote-sensing, geological field work, geophysical exploration, and geochemical surveying (e.g., [1,2]). The remote-sensing approach affords significant tools for characterizing and delineating geological, structural, and lithological features that have helped identify areas of mineralization for many decades [3][4][5][6].…”

“…The remote-sensing approach affords significant tools for characterizing and delineating geological, structural, and lithological features that have helped identify areas of mineralization for many decades [3][4][5][6]. The substantial progress in processing remotely-sensed images has allowed for identifying rocks and minerals based on their spectral properties using multispectral and/or hyperspectral sensors in the visible-near-infrared (VNIR) and the shortwave infrared (SWIR) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Therefore, the use of remote-sensing has been extended to mineral exploration by careful characterization of fault/fracture zones and/or hydrothermal alteration minerals [1,8,9,[14][15][16][17] containing Al-OH, Fe-OH, Mg-OH, Si-OH, and -CO3 radicals [1,18,19].…”

“…In this approach, the area of the highest weight resulting from summing of multi-criteria would represent the promising areas of mineral resources and ores. Such an approach has been successfully applied for prospecting for gold, massive sulfide, and porphyry copper deposits around the world (e.g., [2,6,[10][11][12]) and has proven successful when combined and validated with field, petrographic, and geochemical investigations [1].…”