Using geochemical imaging data to map nickel sulfide deposits in Daxinganling, China

Nickel sulfide deposits occur in ultramafic rocks in the Daxinganling area, China; however, the prospectivity of these deposits has received little attention. This study transformed rasterized regional 1:200,000 geochemical data into spectral-like data and then used hyperspectral tools of the spectral angle mapper (SAM) to classify possible ultramafic lithologies and the multirange spectral feature fitting (MRSFF) method to classify prospective areas that are similar to a typical Gaxian Ni deposit. The prospective area map generated by the MRSFF implies the possible occurrence of ultramafic rocks classified by the SAM method. These results confirm the suitability of this innovative approach for prospectivity mapping of Ni sulfide deposits.