Geogas prospecting: a new tool in the search for concealed mineralizations

TEM observation of geogas-carried particles from the Changkeng concealed gold deposit, Guangdong Province, South China

“…Previous studies have indicated that high concentration (anomaly) of metallogenic elements (such as Au) of the geogas substances is closely related to concealed ore bodies (Malmqvist and Kristiansson, 1984;Kristiansson et al, 1990;Wang et al, 1997;Tong et al, 1998;Xie et al, 1999;Malmqvist et al, 1999). In our work, the Hg-, Zn-, Pb-, or Wbearing particles and gold particles have been not found in blank contrast samples from barren area, showing that the geogas particles are related to concealed ore bodies.…”

“…It can carry solid substances from concealed ore bodies or other geological bodies and transport them to the Earth's surface . Concealed ore bodies may be detected by capturing these geogas-carried substances in Quaternary sediments, and analyzing their extremely low element concentrations by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS), and particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) Malmqvist, 1982, 1987;Malmqvist and Kristiansson, 1984;Kristiansson et al,1990;Wang et al,1997;Tong et al,1998;Hirner, 1998;Xie et al, 1999;Malmqvist et al, 1999;Cao et al, 2004). However, the traditional methods for estimating the concealed ore bodies consist only of measuring the element concentrations of the geogas-carried particles using different analytical methods.…”

TEM observations of particles based on sampling in gas and soil at the Dongshengmiao polymetallic pyrite deposit, Inner Mongolia, Northern China

“…Geogas prospecting is a relatively new technique that was first proposed by Kristiansson and Malmqvist in the early 1980s and is aimed at breaking through difficult prospecting bottlenecks to locate deepseated and concealed mineral deposits Malmqvist, 1982, 1987;Kristiansson et al, 1990;Kristiansson, 1981, 1984;Malmqvist et al, 1999). The basic principles of geogas prospecting are that geogas is widely present as an ascending gas flow in the earth (Gold and Soter, 1980;Chiodini et al, 1995;Xie, 1995;Wang et al, 1997;Tong and Li, 1999;Wang et al, 1999;Morner and Etiope, 2002;Etiope and Martinelli, 2002;Annunziatellis et al, 2003;Wang, 2003;Cameron et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2007) and when the ascending gas flows through the ore body, it can carry solid substances from the concealed ore bodies or other geological bodies and transport them to the earth's surface; these solid substances primarily take the form of nano-scale particles (Cao, 2011;Cao et al, 2010a;Etiope, 1998;Etiope and Lombardi, 1996;Tong and Li, 1999;Tong et al, 1998;Wang et al, 2007).…”

“…This technology is based on decades of development, and it is primarily embodied in the development of key techniques, including sampling methods, trapping mediums and analysis techniques. The current geogas sampling methods are primarily the static method and the dynamic method (Kristiansson et al, 1990;Malmqvist et al, 1999;Wang et al, 1997;Xie et al, 1999). The trapping mediums are comprised of various adsorption materials, for example, plastic film, polyurethane foam plastics, activated carbon and liquid adsorption materials (Kristiansson et al, 1990;Malmqvist et al, 1999;Pauwels et al, 1999;Tong et al, 1998).…”

“…The current geogas sampling methods are primarily the static method and the dynamic method (Kristiansson et al, 1990;Malmqvist et al, 1999;Wang et al, 1997;Xie et al, 1999). The trapping mediums are comprised of various adsorption materials, for example, plastic film, polyurethane foam plastics, activated carbon and liquid adsorption materials (Kristiansson et al, 1990;Malmqvist et al, 1999;Pauwels et al, 1999;Tong et al, 1998). The analysis techniques include particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) (Kristiansson et al, 1990;Malmqvist et al, 1999), resonance ionization mass spectrometry (RIMS) (Ma et al, 1997), laser single atom detection (LSAD) (Wang et al, 1997), laser excited atomic fluorescence spectrometry (LEAFS) (Ma et al, 1998), instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) (Tong and Li, 1999;Wang et al, 1997), and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) (Pauwels et al, 1999).…”