Establishing an integrated workflow identifying and linking surface and subsurface lineaments for mineral exploration under cover: example from the Gawler Craton, South Australia

Mineral exploration in areas comprising thick and complex cover represents an intrinsic challenge. Cost- and time-efficient methods that help to narrow down exploration areas are therefore of particular interest to the Australian mining industry and for mineral exploration worldwide. Based on a case study around the Tarcoola gold mine in the regolith-dominated South Australian central Gawler Craton, we suggest an exploration targeting workflow based on the joint analysis of surface and subsurface lineaments. The datasets utilised in this study are a digital elevation model and radiometric data that represent surface signals and total magnetic intensity and gravity attributed to subsurface signals. We compare automatically and manually mapped lineament sets derived from remotely sensed data. In order to establish an integrated concept for exploration through cover based on the best-suited lineament data, we will point out the most striking differences between the automatically and manually detected lineaments and compare the datasets that represent surficial in contrast to subsurface structures. We further show how lineaments derived from surface and subsurface datasets can be combined to obtain targeting maps that help to narrow down areas for mineral exploration. We propose that target areas are represented by high lineament densities which are adjacent to regions comprising high density of lineament intersections.