Synthetic Informational Mineral Resource Prediction: Case Study in Chifeng Region, Inner Mongolia, China

The Chifeng region is located in the southeastern part of Inner Mongolia, North China. It spans both the metallogenic belts of the Greater Xing'an Mountain and the Yin Mountain. Because of the unique metallogenic background, the Chifeng is a region of high nonferrous metal mineral potential in China. In this article, multisource data sets including geological, geochemical, gravity, airborne magnetics, and Landsat ETM+ data were integrated for mineral potential mapping by using GIS technology. Under the guidance of regional metallogenic regularities and the application of the geoanomaly ore forming theory, nine diagnostic deposit recognition criteria layers were extracted from those sets. Furthermore, these deposit recognition criteria layers were combined in the weight of evidence (WolE) model, which used the spatial correlations between the evidence layers and the known mineral occurrences, to calculate the posterior probability and indentify the delineated prospective area. The results showed that there were three NE-SW trending prospective belts in the north of Chifeng, and one NW-SE striking favorable ore-forming belt in the south of this region. Eighty-six percent of the known mineral occurrences containing 95% of the mount metal resources fell in these four belts. The authors carried out further research study and provided references for resource prediction and assessment study in this area. The results offered scientific evidence of resource exploration in the Chifeng region.