Some statistical analyses of Cu and Mo variates and geological interpretations for Parkam porphyry copper system, Kerman, Iran

Abstract

Precise calculation of statistical characteristics of Cu- and Mo-grade datasets was performed and results were interpreted geologically. The nature of Cu and Mo distributions were initially identified and the distributions were normalized through statistical treatment. Subsequently, the variograms were calculated for each exploration borehole and showed that both Cu and Mo geochemical variates have a spatial correlation, the result upon which the k-means clustering analysis for the whole Cu- and Mo-grade values in the area (see the text) became feasible. Based on the different geochemical behaviors of Mo and Cu, pervasive secondary hydrothermal activity which may exist for long periods, can remobilize Cu from deep parts of mineralization to the shallower levels while Mo is not remobilized significantly. However, in this paper, statistical analysis suggested that hydrothermal activity associated with secondary waters in Parkam was not effective enough to remobilize and enrich Cu. Yet the lower variation (variance) of Cu may indicate some sort of remobilization and enrichment of this element in the system (compared to Mo with higher variance); however, the process did not make the system evolve economically.