Abstract:
This paper collected surface soil above the known concealed deposit the Luoboling porphyry-type copper-molybdenum deposit and acquired samples of ore and surrounding rocks from typical boreholes of the deposit. Then, it analyzed the changes in the contents of six trace elements (Cu, Mo, Ba, Pb, Zn, and V) and the isotopic composition of S and Pb, aiming to verify the ore prospecting effects of the measurement technology of mobile forms of metals in soil and full analysis of fine-grained soil in concealed deposits and to identify the sources of surface geochemical anomalies according to the isotopic composition of Pb and S. The study results are as follows. The total analysis of fine-grained soil showed the best effects in indicating deep ore bodies in the Luoboling deposit, and the areas with high contents of Cu, Ba, and Mo correlated strongly with the distribution of deeply concealed ore bodies. Both the mobile forms of metals in the soil and the total analysis of fine-grained soil showed that it is quite possible that concealed ore bodies occur below sampling points No.14 and 15. Meanwhile, the changes in the contents of V, Pb, and Zn obtained using both methods can accurately delineate the scopes of mineralized rock masses close to the ground surface. However, most of the total sulfur isotopic composition in the soil of anomaly zones inherits from the non-ore-hosting surrounding rocks and masked the contribution from the deep ore bodies. Consequently, sulfur isotopes showed poor effects in indicating the sources of anomalies in the surface soil in the Luoboling deposit. Therefore, it is more reasonable to measure the sulfur isotopic composition according to the mobile forms of metals in the soil. In contrast, the total Pb isotopes in the soil of the anomaly zones inherit the characteristics of the Pb isotopes of deep ore bodies. This serves as direct evidence of full analysis of fine-grained soil in the mineral exploration of coverage areas.Moreover, the changes in the
206Pb/
204Pb ratio in the full analysis of surface fine-grained soil correlated strongly with the distribution of underlying concealed ore bodies and thereby can effectively indicate the deep concealed ore bodies.