Integrating geospatial and petrographic modeling approach for the discovery of Sulphide-Deposits potential at the El-Kid Region in Egypt

Predictive modelling of sulphide-deposits potential is challenging work in mountainous regions such as Wadi El-Kid, due to complex structures, rugged topography and weak resolution of conventional maps. Spatial data integration was used for mapping sulphide-favorable zones in El-Kid region, Egypt. Multi-criteria decision support was attained for locating sulphide-potential sites based on geologic, geochemical, geophysical, remote sensing, and petrographic techniques. The holistic integrated techniques were applied jointly to provide spatial factors contributing chiefly in occurrences of sulphide-ores. The field investigations and the remote sensing data, including radar and multispectral datasets, were selected simultaneously for mapping rock units, structural elements, geochemical anomaly, and hydrothermal alterations. The integrated geophysical tools were achieved to aeromagnetic and bouguer gravity datasets, to delineate multi-source geological anomalies for further estimating sulphide-related anomalies. The spatial factors were analyzed in GIS framework to develop a unique Sulphide-deposits Prospecting Model (SPM). Suitable weights and ranks were estimated to each factor and its classes spontaneously, based on its relative contribution towards sulphide-accumulations using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The study results provide an acceptable map, predicting new sites for sulphide-related anomalies, which occur as small massive pockets or as low-grade disseminations in metavolcanics of Samra-Tarr area. The spatial distribution of 63 known sulphide-occurrences, were used to validate the potential map and for more ore microscopy studies.