Translating expressions of intrusion-related mineral systems into mappable spatial proxies for mineral potential mapping: Case studies from the Southern New England Orogen, Australia

An understanding of the modelled mineral system and high-quality data that accurately map this system are prerequisites for producing geologically meaningful mineral potential maps. Critical to this is the translation of the targeted mineral system components into mappable targeting criteria and their spatial proxies. This paper presents a workflow that illustrates this translation process, also highlighting that, if done well, mineral potential mapping can produce statistically valid, geologically meaningful, and practically useful results that not only predict the location of known mineralisation but also identify new target areas. An important ingredient of the workflow described herein is what we call a mineral systems atlas. This compendium includes (1) a spatial data table detailing the translation of the modelled mineral system, (2) the predictive maps that capture the mappable components of the targeted mineral system, and (3) the final mineral potential maps. A case study implementing and illustrating this workflow is presented for intrusion-related Au and Sn +/- W mineral systems in the Southern New England Orogen, New South Wales, Australia. Importantly, the mineral potential maps generated as part of this study succeeded in identifying areas of known intrusion-related Au and Sn +/- W mineralisation and new areas with high potential for discovery.