The subject map presents a weights of evidence mineral prospectivity analysis of the Olympic Cu–Au Province in the eastern Gawler Craton. This metallogenic province is host to iron oxide – copper gold (IOCG) deposits including Olympic Dam and...
The subject map presents a weights of evidence mineral prospectivity analysis of the Olympic Cu–Au Province in the eastern Gawler Craton. This metallogenic province is host to iron oxide – copper gold (IOCG) deposits including Olympic Dam and Prominent Hill. As much of the province is buried beneath younger sedimentary cover, undertaking a mineral prospectivity analysis in this ‘fairway’ is particularly relevant in enabling ranking of camp- to deposit-scale geophysical features. The analysis presented here integrates regional gravity and magnetic potential field data, magnetotelluric data, and basement geological interpretations. A knowledge-based weights of evidence approach (Bonham-Carter 1994) was chosen for use, as the IOCG deposit characteristics known within this region comprise a wide variety of geological hosts, structural settings and alteration/mineralisation styles (Reid 2019). The high degree of variability in deposit controls and manifestation, coupled with variable data density, render using an evidence-based approach involving training datasets (e.g. Ford et al. 2019) unsuitable. Therefore, applying a simple mineral systems approach (Wyborn, Heinrich and Jaques 1994; McCuaig and Hronsky 2014) using regional-scale data with unbiased or uniform coverage represents the most appropriate methodology for this fairway. This study represents an update from previous work of Skirrow, Schofield and Connelly (2011), who assessed areas of interest for U-rich IOCG deposits across east-central South Australia. Skirrow, Schofield and Connelly (2011) used a variety of data types, including mapped and interpreted geology, regional geophysics and point-source information from drillholes. Recent improvements to the interpreted basement geology of the region (Wise, Cowley and Fabris 2015), geophysical anomaly delineation (Katona and Fabris 2019), and lithospheric-scale magnetotelluric imaging (Thiel et al. 2016), have warranted making an update to prospectivity models across the Olympic Domain. The resulting models highlight the major IOCG deposits as well as under-explored regions, and validate DEM applying the weights of evidence approach at this domain scale. Incorporation of geological proxies for mineral system components, and their integration with geophysical anomalism, provides a method for narrowing the search space for IOCG deposits beyond targeting gravity anomalies alone, and eliminates many false positives. This ‘intelligence amplification’ process provides a pragmatic framework for exploration effort scale-reduction from a domain of proven prospectivity to the camp scale.
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