Exploit of Ground Magnetic Survey Data for Solid Mineral Exploration

Year 2021, Volume: 3 Issue: 3, 208 - 216, 15.07.2021

Kesyton Oyamenda Ozegın Owens Monday Alıle

Abstract

Solid minerals are natural resources that forms part of the earth resources which beckon on humankind for exploration, extraction, exploitation and growth. The high global demand for solid mineral produce has led to growing applications of geophysical scientific knowledge of prospecting to a wide range of solid mineral deposits. In this study, ground magnetic survey was used to investigate and delineate the presence of subsurface magnetic features for possible solid mineral exploration. Ground magnetic field survey carried out with a hand-held magnetometer were taken in Igarra along Six (6) traverses at 20 m interval each and in Ososo along two (2) traverses were surveyed at 20 m and 5 m interval each respectively. It involves establishing traverses in an approximately W – E direction in the study area. The GSM-19T Systems utilities software was used to perform the diurnal corrections. The total magnetic intensity values at various station positions were processed to obtain the relative magnetic intensity values. These were plotted against station positions as magnetic profiles using Grapher 11 to produce the magnetic profile along the traverses while Surfer 13.0 Software was also used to produce relative magnetic intensity map, 2D Contour and 3D Surface distribution Maps which aided the qualitatively interpretation. The obtained magnetic signature showed substantial varying amplitude from a minimum value of -750 nT to a maximum value of 1000 nT, indicative of different magnetic susceptibilities or distinction in solid mineral contents of the rock types. It also showed that there are magnetic mineral rocks with high magnetic susceptibility values from the centre towards the northeastern and low magnetic susceptibility values at the southwestern of the study area. The findings showed that the study area had vast occurrence of the solid mineral deposits, which would be of economic importance, if exploited.

Keywords

Basement, Exploitation, Geophysical Data, Susceptibility, Traverses

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