Detection of Main Rock Type for Rare Earth Elements (REEs) Mineralization Using Staged Factor and Fractal Analysis in Gazestan Iron-Apatite Deposit, Central Iran

Abstract

Gazestan magnetite-apatite deposit is located in Central Iran and Bafq region, which has been occurred in form of veins, veinlets, and small apatite lenses as well as magnetite in metasomatic rock types such as green chlorite-actinolite rock units. These rocks are situated in the carbonate-volcanic complex of Upper Precambrian-Lower Cambrian Rizo formation. In this study, staged factor analysis and Concentration-Number (C-N) fractal model were used based on core samples for determination of main rock type for Rare Earth Elements (REEs) mineralization. Hence, after normalizing the data by staged factor analysis, the target factors were determined and the factorial map was generated using the C-N fractal modeling. The results showed that the first factor of the sixth step (F1-6) is contained of the REEs with phosphorous. Afterwards, results obtained by the C-N fractal method on the F1-6 indicated that there are five populations for REEs which are compared with different lithological units by evaluation matrix. The evaluation matrix confirmed the compliance of magnetite-apatite units with the high values of mineralization factor. The REEs were accumulated in magnetite-apatite units based on highest Overall Accuracy (OA).