Anomaly delineation of porphyry copper deposits of Hanza region through geochemical data analysis and multi-spectral remote sensing

The Hanza region is located in the southern part of Urumieh–Dokhtar metallogenic belt in SE Iran. This region includes six known porphyry copper deposits, and it is considered as an ore-bearing region from the geochemical viewpoint. The aim of this research work is to examine the effective processing techniques in the analysis of stream sediment geochemical datasets and ASTER satellite images. The processing methods have led to the identification of eight new prospective areas. These methods are aimed at providing univariate geochemical maps. The stream sediment geochemical mapping for Cu and Mo is performed by the sample catchment basin approach. The results derived from this approach have been mapped in four classes associated with the first quartile, third quartile, and threshold values obtained from the Median Absolute Deviation method. False-colour composite and band ratio techniques are adopted as two well-known methods for the processing of an ASTER scene spanning the studied area. Eight new targets for possible mineralization have been resulted from geochemical data analysis. Image processing techniques on the ASTER multi-spectral data have also revealed widespread hydrothermal alterations associated with the known porphyry copper deposits and the new prospects