ABSTRACT

Prospecting target areas generally involves a comprehensive analysis of the geological prospecting criteria or the use of mathematical methods to extract comprehensive prospecting information to compare with the known ore deposits. Geochemical survey data have played an important role for prospecting target areas. However, most target areas are large, their locations are not specific, and the data are mostly based on the main ore-forming elements and ignore the contribution of other geochemical elements. This study rasterizes geochemical data at a scale of 1:200,000 in the Manzhouli area and prepares a geochemical image atlas with a spatial resolution of 1 km using the hyperspectral remote sensing data processing method. The sequential maximum angle convex cone (SMACC) spectral tool is used to identify favorable regions of rock formation, to classify enrichment zones of metallogenic elements in combination with the mineralization intensity of the main ore-forming elements on the surface, and to generate an ore prospecting target area classification map. Our results show that some of the areas known to have ore deposits, including the Wunugetushan, Babayi, and Badaguan copper molybdenum deposits in the Manzhouli area, fall into the potential target area, which demonstrates the accuracy of our proposed method in prospecting target areas. Therefore, this method can be used to accurately identify ore targets based on comprehensive geochemical data.