LWIR for mapping copper porphyry and skarn deposits

Neil Pendock

DiRT Exploration

BIOGRAPHY

Neil Pendock is an applied mathematician (PhD, Witwatersrand, 1985) with extensive experience developing
algorithms and software for processing potential field, remote sensing and most recently hyperspectral core
logs for various exploration plays.

SUMMARY

The traditional exploration paradigm for copper exploration was narrow, steep, high-grade underground ore-
bodies mined from underground and the exploration strategy of choice was geophysics. For various reasons
both economic and technical, new projects increasingly focus on lower cut-off grades of large, wide,
mineralised systems close to the surface. The exploration strategy of choice for these deposits is remote
sensing with long wave infrared [LWIR] well suited to this play.

Key words: LWIR, ASTER, Nababeep, Las Bambas, Pendock.

INTRODUCTION

Visible near infrared (VNIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) spectrometers can map minerals associated with
propylitic, argillic, phyllic, and potassic alteration.

Quartz, feldspars, garnets and pyroxenes (typical Cu porphyry and skarn minerals) have no VNIR-SWIR
signatures but do have features in the LWIR.

SWIR sensors see only top mm of the surface of the earth. vegetation and transported cover degrade
interpretations. This is less of a problem in LWIR imagery as thermal emittance allows penetration of
moderate cover.

We shall consider two examples. A noritoid (igneous intrusive) deposit at Nababeep in the Northern Cape
and Las Bambas, a skarn deposit (Ca/Si rich rocks) in Southern Peru. In this extended abstract we shall
concentrate on the Nababeep deposit.

METHOD

That wonderful resource for explorationists and spectral geologists, www.mindat.org, provides a useful list of
minerals present at Nababeep:

Azurite Cu3(CO3)2(OH)2
Bornite Cu5FeS4
Chalcocite Cu2S
Chalcopyrite CuFeS2
Connellite Cu19(SO4)(OH)32Cl4 · 3H2O
Copper Cu
Cuprite Cu2O
Malachite Cu2(CO3)(OH)2

The most important mineral, chalcopyrite, has no features in the SWIR but has a distinctive LWIR spectrum.

proEXPLO 2017
We downloaded a freely available daytime ASTER image of the Nababeep area collected on 29 June 2003.

We decomposed the five band ASTER image into a linear combination of 16 spectral endmembers and their
associated abundances.

A couple of these in-scene endmembers (1 & 5) correlate well with a library spectrum of chalcopyrite
Endmember 12 is interpreted as malachite.

Sorting the endmembers so the warmer the colour the closer the endmember is to chalcopyrite gives a target
map over an active exploration area.

CONCLUSIONS

ASTER LWIR can be used to generate cost-effective targets for copper porphyry and skarn exploration over
large areas. These deposits are shallow and relatively large in areal extent.