ABSTRACT

Rock alteration processes can be studied through geochemical Mass Balance (MB) estimation in several ways. Due to the ease of its adaptability, especially its graphical approach, the ISOCON method of mass balance is extensively used for such studies. However the technique suffers from a serious limitation, in particular with reference to the graphical treatment involving arbitrary scaling, which is explained in this paper with the help of illustrative examples. The reference frame for MB obtained by best fit regression is biased to the element scaled upward that plot away from the origin. The scaling factors actually act as weighting factors which bias the slope of the ISOCON line because it is controlled by data points having higher numerical value in the plot. Since scaling of concentration data are unavoidable in ISOCON analysis, the results of MB may potentially be misleading. The slope of the best fit ISOCON line may vary within the range of slopes defined by individual conserved elements. In case, no scaling is done, the ISOCON shall weight in proportion to the abundance of the immobile elements. The co-linearity of the immobile elements with origin is also subjective in nature with the elements near origin apparently seem to satisfy a wide range ISOCON slopes than those that are away from origin. When equal weight is assigned to all elements, regardless of their concentration level, an average of the slopes of the immobile elements (i.e., concentration ratios in altered to unaltered) may provide better approximation for reference frame without recourse to graphical plot and ISOCON solution. The existing weighted least-squares or equal weight least-squares ISOCON method is found to be more appropriate in case of higher uncertainty in the protolith compositions. In any case, a proper identification of the conserved species is an essential prerequisite to successful implementation of mass balance computation minimizing the inherent errors of the ISOCON technique.