Seismic Reflection Surveys in Search for Mineral Deposits: A Case of Prominent Hill Copper-Gold Deposit

Research areas:

• Volume 4,Issue 5, Sept. 2017

Year:

2015

Type of Publication:

Article

Keywords:

Copper-Gold, Experiment, Exploration, Modelling, Regional Scale, Seismic Reflection

Authors:

Evans Onojasun Okan

Journal:

IJRIES

Volume:

2

Number:

5

Pages:

131-139

Month:

September

BibTex:

@article{94, author = "Okan, Evans Onojasun", abstract = "Depletion of the known shallow mineral resources has increased the interest to develop exploration techniques capable of imaging structures up to 3.9 km, the current deepest mine on earth. This task is now rarely achieved by traditional potential and drilling methods hence another method such as seismic reflections is needed. Seismic reflection method has proven to be a powerful tool that provides a high-resolution image of the subsurface and information about structural and lithological relationships that control mineral deposits. Despite these successes, its application has been limited to mine scales. Large scale experiment has not been conducted. In this study we analyses such a case by modelling a Prominent Hill copper-gold deposit scenario where 2D seismic with different test parameters was used to detect the presence of a possible intrusive structure. The modelling result shows that seismic reflection as an exploration tool is feasible even with a very sparse 80m source and 40m receivers spacing. As ore deposits occur at all scales; using seismic methods are likely to be cost effective for bodies several hundreds of meters across hence we propose 2D seismic as viable tool for detecting such intrusive structures. ", journal = "IJRIES", keywords = "Copper-Gold, Experiment, Exploration, Modelling, Regional Scale, Seismic Reflection", month = "September", number = "5", pages = "131-139", title = "{S}eismic {R}eflection {S}urveys in {S}earch for {M}ineral {D}eposits: {A} {C}ase of {P}rominent {H}ill {C}opper-{G}old {D}eposit", volume = "2", year = "2015", }

Abstract:

Depletion of the known shallow mineral resources has increased the interest to develop exploration techniques capable of imaging structures up to 3.9 km, the current deepest mine on earth. This task is now rarely achieved by traditional potential and drilling methods hence another method such as seismic reflections is needed. Seismic reflection method has proven to be a powerful tool that provides a high-resolution image of the subsurface and information about structural and lithological relationships that control mineral deposits. Despite these successes, its application has been limited to mine scales. Large scale experiment has not been conducted. In this study we analyses such a case by modelling a Prominent Hill copper-gold deposit scenario where 2D seismic with different test parameters was used to detect the presence of a possible intrusive structure. The modelling result shows that seismic reflection as an exploration tool is feasible even with a very sparse 80m source and 40m receivers spacing. As ore deposits occur at all scales; using seismic methods are likely to be cost effective for bodies several hundreds of meters across hence we propose 2D seismic as viable tool for detecting such intrusive structures.

Full text: IJRIES_94_Final.pdf Online version