Delineation of mineralization zones in porphyry Cu deposits by fractal concentration–volume modeling

The purpose of this study was to identify the various mineralization zones especially supergene enrichment and hypogene in two different Iranian porphyry Cu deposits, based on subsurface data and by using the proposed concentration–volume (C–V) fractal method. The Sungun and Chah-Firuzeh porphyry Cu deposits, which are situated in NW and SE Iran, respectively, were selected for this study. Straight lines fitted through log–log plots showing C–V relations for Cu were employed to separate supergene enrichment and hypogene zones from oxidation zones and barren host rocks in the two deposits and to distinguish a skarn mineralized zone from the hypogene zone in Sungun deposit. In the proposed C–V fractal method, the identification of mineralization zones is based on power–law relationships between Cu concentrations and the volume of rocks hosting porphyry Cu mineralization. Separate subsurface data from the two deposits were analyzed by C–V fractal method and the results have been compared with geological models which included alteration and mineralogical models. The comparison shows that the interpreted zones based on the C–V fractal method are consistent with the geological models. The proposed C–V method is a new approach to defining zones in a mineral deposit and there was no commercial software available to perform the relevant calculations; therefore, a fractal concentration–volume (FCV) software was designed by the authors to achieve this goal.

Research highlights► Determination of concentration-volume (C-V) method for identification of mineralization zones in porphyry deposits. ► Separation of supergene and hypogene zones in Sungun and Chah-Firuzeh Iranian porphyry deposits by C–V method. ► Separation skarn zone from porphyry stock in Sungun porphyry deposit by using of C–V method. ► Construction of FCV software. ► Correlation between results from C–V method and geological characteristics.