NS43A-3879:
Mapping of Gold Mineralization Alteration Zones in Central Eastern Desert Egypt using Spectral Angular Mapper and Aeromagnetic Data
Thursday, 18 December 2014
Emad Hasan, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, ARRC group, Norman, OK, United States; Damietta University, Faculty of Science, Geology Department, New Damietta, Egypt, Todd Fagin, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Norman, OK, United States and Zeinhom El Alfy, Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority (EMRA), Cairo, Egypt
Abstract:
Central Eastern Desert (CED), Egypt has long history of gold exploration and exploitation. In this study, we integrated Spectral Angular Mapper (SAM) technique and aeromagnetic data to map the gold mineralization associated within alteration zones in CED. The spectral reflectance curves of five main alteration minerals (Hematite, Illite, Kaolinite, Chlorite, and Quartz) were utilized as end members in the SAM supervised classification of ETM+ data. Each alteration mineral type was represented as a binary image that overlaid together to obtain single primary alteration map in CED. The possible pathways for the alteration migration was defined based on the subsurface and surface lineation features. For the subsurface lineation, Euler deconvolution filter was applied on the aeromagnetic data to locate the deep-seated faults. The surface lineation and shear zones were extracted from ETM+ data and used together with the subsurface lineation map to obtain a structural map. Layer intersection and fuzzy membership operation were applied for the entire datasets to identify the possible sites of alteration zones. Several GPS readings were taken from the field areas around the gold mine sites, and used as validation points for our primary results.
