Determination of relationship between silver and lead mineralization based on fractal modeling in Mehdiabad Zn-Pb-Ag deposit, Central Iran

Abstract

Main aim of this study is to determine relationship between lead and silver mineralized zones using the Concentration-Volume (C-V) fractal modeling and logratio matrix based on subsurface data in Mehdiabad Zn-Pb-Ag deposit, central Iran. First, Pb and Ag raw data were analyzed by statistical processes and their histogram have similar shape. Next, Geostatistical modeling was carried out for the Pb and Ag data and their distributions were estimated by ordinary kriging. Then, the C-V log-log plots were created for the Pb and Ag which show five populations as mineralized zones for both of them. Moreover, correlation between the Pb and Ag different mineralized zones were calculated by the logratio matrix. Overall accuracies (OAs) are higher than 90% for enriched and highly mineralized zones of these elements. However, these zones were validated with geological particulars which indicate that oxidized mineralization is situated in Black Hill (gossan) and Calamine mine and silver was enriched in cerussites. Results obtained by the fractal modeling represent that the main mineralization for Pb and Ag occur in the central and NW part of the Mehdiabad deposit especially in the oxidized mineralization.