Dear Dr. Babakan,

if you want to use satellite images on a seasonal and annual basis to find new ore deposits and not only monitor ancient mining sites you can only use changes in the landscape which follow suit to these variations. The only spheres which respond to these temporal changes to be visible in remote sensing images (from air-borne to satellite-borne) are the biosphere and hydrosphere which interact in parts through the pedosphere with the lithosphere and its anomalous areas called outcrops of ore deposits (gossans). You need to know much about vegetation geography or bio-geography and hydrography and hydraulic systems. Extreme changes in the parent material can ensue changes in the vegetation and also stress the growth of plants by providing or reducing elements necessary for plant nutrition. On the other hand the intensity of run-off is different in different lithologies. In some cases under arid to semiarid climatic conditions when hydrographic system such as drainage systems and lakes fall dry even efflorescences may come into existence and direct your thoughts to anomalous element depletions or concentrations in the bedrock. It is an interesting but complex approach to be taken which cannot be handled without supplementary experience and knowledge in climate-geomorphology.

The statistics and the mathematical approach are second as it is the type of device or software. I express a stark warning to try and find ore deposits with the above methods without knowledge and experience in the subject matters relevant to the various spheres on the globe.

With kind regards

H.G.Dill

Lack of vegetation in a wooded area may imply there are sulphides (such as pyrite which comes with many metallic deposits) in the area. Pyrite makes the soil acidic and that kills plants.

so thanks everyone for kindly contribution

Only Satellite images will not help to identify ore deposits, deposits have to be explored very systematically, you have to first decide the type of deposit that is to be explored, then geological setting has to be considered and asses whether the area has any indications of mineralization, one has to carry out systematic mapping and sampling, then focus on potential zones with pitting and trenching, then if results are favorable, detailed geophysics and geo-chemical prospecting will give anomalies, then detailed exploration will be carried out, Remote sensing maps will be useful in the initial stages of exploration, may prove to be useful in inaccessible terrains, so only your ASTER or other images will not help, thay have to be integrated with detailed geological exploration, Best wishes.

thanks Rajagopal Krishnamurthi

as you mentioned i just focused now on the initial exploration in the region

my prefered target is marble, travertine and perhaps feldspar

i want to develope an exploration workflow based on the current mining areas in the region and i am going to use these as the sign of mineralization in the region

have you any suggestion on this way??

Dear Dr. Babakan,

calcareous rocks such as travertine and marble are depeleted in K, Na and sometimes abundant in Mg. This unbalanced chemical association is detrimental to the plant nutrition and may cause a stressed vegetation so that biochemical and vegetation-geography are good tools. Moreover carbonate beds or enrustation may form ledges protruding out of the slopes so that geomoprhological methods in terms of remote sensing may be very helpful. This may also be true for feldspar deposits. It depends on the wall and country rocks whether radiometric/ spectroscopic ground and air-borne surveys can be used to identify anomalies of K. As far as pegmatite deposits are concerned I know of good results.

With kind regards

H.G.Dill

that's so good dear Harald G. Dill

very thanks for excellent information you shared

best regards

My suggestion to you is, if there are working mines already in that area, collect all geological information and try to asses the control on mineralization( structural, lithological and startigraphic), accordingly look for same signatures in adjoining areas for a new deposit, exploration geologists call this as Known to Unknown, read a good Exploration Geology book, Introduction to Mineral Exploration by Anthony M Evans, Blackwell Science Limited 1995, good book to start with. Best wishes

thank you dear Rajagopal Krishnamurthi

ı am also trying to do similarly but access to aditional info in the region is restricted unfortunatly

I think analysis of lithology of the region from satellite images of area can be useful.

Do u have any data such as some mineralized sample locations from a near previously-investigated potential area !?

Solmaz Babakan

The task you propose is similar to that I did during my work of completion of studies, many years ago, of course on that occasion we could not use satellite information, but we did use aero-geophysical information.

Rajagopal and Harald's proposals are true. So, here are some suggestions I do:

1- Identify the areas where already known mines appear in the region.

2- Characterize these areas with the information available and as they are satellite images, make their corresponding spectral signatures.

3- Perform an exploratory data analysis to discriminate the attributes that offer the best results.

4- Use a pattern recognition technique with the best attributes and verify the classification error afterwards.

5- Employ some pattern recognition technique or a data mining tool to identify potentially favorable areas.

Of course, if you have geological, geomorphological and geophysical information, the results can be much better.

As a suggestion, I invite you to see the possibilities of the WECA software for this type of task.

I hope I have helped you and good luck.

dear Willy Rodriguez so thanks for your informative explanations

all your comments sound so interesting and exciting i will examine certainly

and the WEKA you commended seems to be the key feature for my purposes

so so thanks

best regards

Thank you for this question, interested to know more, if someone can share