Page 26 - Geochemical Anomaly and Mineral Prospectivity Mapping in GIS

Predictive Modeling of Mineral Exploration Targets 21

Reimann (2005) reviewed and recommended various techniques for producing fully
informative geochemical maps and concluded that such specialised techniques are not
provided in most GIS. Data sets and predictive models of geochemical anomalies and/or
prospective areas have to be exported to specialised software packages to create fully
informative geochemical maps suitable for decision-making in mineral exploration.

SUMMARY
Predictive models of either geochemical anomalies or prospective areas are generally
empirical models, which depict locations where mineral deposits of the type sought
plausibly exist. Such pieces of spatial geo-information are important for decision-making
in mineral exploration programmes. The tasks involved in predictive modeling of
significant geochemical anomalies and/or prospective areas, however, are tedious and
complex. A GIS provides various functionalities that facilitate rapid yet efficient
accomplishment of predictive models of geochemical anomalies and/or prospective
areas. This chapter has introduced the relevance of a GIS to predictive modeling of
geochemical anomalies and/or prospective areas in terms of data analysis, integration
and visualisation. The next chapter provides introductions to the types of data models by
which geoscience data sets used in target generation can be represented in a GIS, the
ways by which such data sets can be organised in a database, and the various types of
operations by which such data sets can be manipulated in the predictive modeling
process.