Anomaly separation of La, Ce and Nd in Se-Chahun iron ore deposit, Bafq district, central Iran

Abstract

Increase in global prices of rare earth elements (REEs) in recent years has attracted many exploration researchers, especially in Iran. There are some promising areas in central Iran which contain significant amounts of light rare earth elements (LREE). SeChahun metasomatic iron ore deposit is one of them. Concentrations of La, Ce and Nd are considerable in some parts of this deposit. On the other hand, one of the most important steps in geochemical exploration of precious elements is separation of anomaly from background. For this purpose, some methods such as classical statistics and fractal models are common. However, application and simplicity are the two main parameters for choosing a proper method. In this study, classical statistics approach (using the mean and standard deviation), and also probability graph and C-A fractal model (Concentration Area) were applied for anomaly-background separation of La, Ce and Nd. Comparing the results of the methods with mineralogy and chemistry of the samples, showed that probability graph had the best performance in anomaly separation. Therefore, considering the results as well as simplicity of the method, it concluded that probability graph is more applicable and a better approach in comparison to others.