1 State Key Laboratory of Deep Earth and Mineral Exploration/Key Laboratory of Geochemical Exploration of Ministry of Natural Resource, Institute of Geophysical and Geochemical Exploration, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Langfang 065000, China
2 College of Earth Sciences, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin 541004, China
3 UNESCO International Centre on Global-Scale Geochemistry, Langfang 065000, China
Intelligent mineral prediction is a cutting-edge field in digital geology, where numerous machine learning methods have been widely applied to construct mineral prediction models. Current approaches typically convert various geological data into raster images, segment them into training units, and then learn to predict based on the presence or absence of known mineral occurrences as labels within each unit. However, these methods suffer from problems such as insufficient training data, complex model architectures, and an inability to clearly distinguish false anomalies. This study aims to construct a multi-source mineral prediction model by integrating regional geochemical exploration data and geological mineralization elements. Using gold deposits in southern Sichuan as a case study, we apply convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to directly process raw geological data, using distance intervals from known deposits as labels for supervised learning. The trained model is then applied to delineate prospective areas in frontier regions far from any known mineralization. The model ultimately identified seven prospective areas, demonstrating that CNNs can effectively capture spatial features around known gold deposits and extract meaningful patterns from raw input data. This study provides a new solution for exploration in blank areas, improves the accuracy of gold prospectivity mapping, and offers a novel experimental approach for applying machine learning to mineral exploration.
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