An integrated approach for rapid exploration of carbonatites and related mineral resources

Abstract Carbonatites are proven significant repositories of several critical and strategic elements such as rare earth elements, niobium, thorium, and uranium. Owing to their economic significance, mapping of carbonatites and associated mineral deposits has occupied prominent place in mineral resource exploration programs. In this study an integrated approach was developed to map carbonatite and related mineral deposits in the Loe‐Shilman, Northwest Himalaya of Pakistan, using remotely sensed advance space‐borne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (ASTER) multispectral data and visible near infrared and short‐wave infrared (VNIR‐SWIR) spectral characteristics of minerals in these deposits. Several image enhancement techniques, including band ratio (i.e., B4/B3), principal component and minimum noise fraction transformation (PC6 and MNF5, respectively) helped in highlighting the targeted rocks. The results demonstrate the suitability of ASTER data for discriminating carbonatite related mineral deposits from other surrounding lithologies. Results obtained from these methods were validated through field observations in the area and further confirmed through petrographic and chemical analyses of collected specimens. Field data have also served as training data to perform a supervised classification, allowing further improvement of the mapping results. Moreover, the obtained results from the techniques used for exploring carbonatites and related mineral deposits were stacked together for comparison with each other, to check their sensitivities, and assess their efficiency and accuracy. Generally, all these methods successfully highlighted carbonatites and related mineral deposits; however, when used integratively they exhibit higher degree of accuracy, and has proven to be relatively rapid and cost‐effective.