Geochemical Quantitative Assessment of Mineral Resource Potential in the Da Hinggan Mountains in Inner Mongolia, China

Abstract

Studying surface geochemical anomalies is important for detecting the presence of mineral deposits. However, distinguishing inconspicuous geochemical anomalies is a challenge for geochemists. This paper studies geochemical quantitative prediction for Pb–Zn metallic mineral deposits by identifying inconspicuous surface geochemical anomalies mainly associated with the Permian and Jurassic strata in the middle-southern Da Hinggan Mountains metallogenic belt. Some new methods are employed to highlight weak surface geochemical anomalies. The weak surface geochemical anomalies of Pb and Zn are effectively highlighted by the average contrast values of Pb–Zn–Ag–Cd. The similarity coefficient with the large typical discovered deposits is used to identify new Pb–Zn mineralized anomalies and delineate new prospecting target areas. The denudation degree of mineral deposit is determined by the ratio of (W × Sn)/(As × Sb). The analogy method and areal productivity method are employed for resource prediction. Thirty-six prediction areas with Pb–Zn resources of 307.73 million tons are delineated. Five prediction areas are verified, and some new mineral deposits are proven by drilling. The verification results show that the predicted resources are very reasonable and credible. This paper is a successful case of quantitative prediction assessment of mineral resource potential, which can be used as a reference for future prospecting activities.

3D mineral exploration Cu-Zn targeting with multi-source geoscience datasets in the Weilasituo-bairendaba district, Inner Mongolia, China

“…The Greater Xing'an Range (GXAR) metallogenic belt is located in Central Asian Orogenic Belt (Figure 1A), which is one of the nineteen important metallogenic belts in China (Yang, 2017). Metallogenic elements such as Sn, Fe, Pb, Zn, Au, Cu, Ag, and Mo are associated with or zoned (Zhang et al, 2013;Liu et al, 2016;Zhou et al, 2019).…”

“…According to the existing reports, the Weilasituo-bairendaba district is an important component of the Cu-Pb-Zn metallogenic belt (Yang, 2017;Zhang, 2017). The known Weilasituo Cu-Zn deposit and Bairendaba Ag-Pb-Zn deposit have many similarities in stratigraphy, intrusions, structure, geophysics, and geochemistry (Tang et al, 2014;Zhang, 2017;IMGECL, 2018).…”

“…The previous district-scale mineral prospectivity modeling studies were mainly 2D, but not 3D. Zhang (2017) and Yang (2017) conducted mineral prospectivity modeling for the Pb-Zn polymetallic deposits in the western slope of the southern section of the Greater Xing'an Range (GXAR), and the results show that the Weilasituo-bairendaba district is important to explore Cu-Pb-Zn polymetallic deposits. In this paper, four geological information such as regional faults, secondary faults, magnetic susceptibility, and geochemical anomaly were selected based on the metallogenic geological characteristics and obtained their distribution in 3D space.…”

Spatial distribution and ecological risk of heavy metals and their source apportionment in soils from a typical mining area, Inner Mongolia, China

“…A study conducted by Chun et al (2021) using a semi-variance-based model showed that the heavy metals content gradually decreased with increasing distance from the tailings pond in the Baiyinhua mining area of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. Yang et al (2022) found that soil pH, organic matter, and cation exchange are important factors driving the transformation of soil heavy metals forms.…”

“…Inner Mongolia has huge mineral reserves, which is of great significance to the arrangement of mineral resources in China (Yang et al, 2022). Due to the fact that most of the mineral resources in Inner Mongolia are located in grasslands ecosystem with a weak resistance to disturbance, mining activities can lead to a great threat to the ecosystem.…”