Borehole resistivity and induced polarization tomography at the Canadian Shield for Mineral Exploration in north-western Sudbury

Abstract

Mineral exploration in the Canadian shield is a major challenge nowadays. This is because of the thick overburden cover and complex geology. Borehole tomography using resistivity and induced polarization (BHDCIP) method has a big advantage here due to that the data is acquired underneath the cover and data quality, in general, is superior to that acquired at the surface. BHDCIP provides good resistivity and chargeability data, which can identify mineralization easily. In this study, the BHDCIP survey with high-resolution data was carried out to identify mineralization zones in the McCreedy West zone, north-western Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Two and three-dimensional (2-D and 3-D) inversion results of three boreholes clearly revealed the mineralization zones and that harmonised with previous geological studies in the study area. The BHDCIP method provided insight and developed an informative subsurface map to identify the mineralization zones, thus proving it as a beneficial tool used for mineral exploration in complex geology with a minimal data survey and an irregular geometrical distribution.

Some Experiences of Resistivity and Induced Polarization Methods on the Exploration of Sulfide: A Review

“…The cross-borehole resistivity measurements seem to be more useful than single-borehole measurements (Yang & Ward, 1985;Wright & Ward, 1987;Qian, Milkereit, & Gräber, 2007;Ali et al, 2020). Qian, Milkereit, and Gräber (2007) reported the success of the cross-borehole method, where the imaging of the massive sulfide mineralization was more extended compared to the single borehole.…”

“…A variety of applications of resistivity and Induced polarization to mineral exploration were demonstrated in many researchers and significantly prove their success by locating the best drilling points (Langore, Alikaj, & Gjovreku, 1989;Oldenburg & Li, 1994;White et al, 2001;Wilkinson et al, 2006;Bery et al, 2012;Loke et al, 2013;Dandi, 2014;Tavakoli et al, 2016a;Ali et al, 2020). The geological structures of occurrence of sulfide minerals show low resistivity and high chargeability (Johnson & Anderson, 1981;Langore, Alikaj, & Gjovreku, 1989;White et al, 2001;Yoshioka & Zhdanov, 2005;Ja, Oo, & Arce, 2014;Côrtes et al, 2016).…”

Numerical Simulation of Geophysical Models to Detect Mining Tailings’ Leachates within Tailing Storage Facilities

“…The ERT method has been widely applied in groundwater, mining, environmental, and civil engineering investigations [25,26]. Mineral grains in the subsurface constitute the primary component of nonconductive soil and rock fragments [27,28].…”

Exploratory assessment of Lead-Zinc mineralization in Bangalela area Central Benue Trough Nigeria using integrated ground geophysical data

“…The IP method records changes in the chargeability of subsurface materials (Dusabemariya et al 2020). The technique has been found effective for locating metallic sulphide deposits because of its capability to discriminate conductive or semi-conductive bodies disseminated within the host rock (Gurin et al 2019;Dusabemariya et al 2020;Ali et al 2020aAli et al , 2020bMashhadi 2022). By combining the attributes from ER and IP measurements, mineralized bodies distributed within the country rocks can be isolated with some con dence (Heritiana et al 2019).…”