Application of Airborne Magnetic Survey in Deep Iron Ore Prospecting—A Case Study of Jinling Area in Shandong Province, China

Abstract

With the increasing demand for mineral resources, there is an inevitable trend to carry out deep prospecting in existing old mines to find a second or even third mining space. Deep prospecting is also an affordable and practical way to prolong the lives of mines and provide a sustainable supply of mineral resources. The magnetic survey is arguably the most effective method for iron ore prospecting. In this paper, a high resolution airborne magnetic (HRAM) survey for deep iron prospecting in the Jinling iron ore cluster (JIOC) was carried out in 2018, which renewed the field magnetic data of the JIOC obtained in the 1980s. From previous studies, almost all iron deposits in the JIOC are spatially distributed in the contact zone between the intrusive rocks and the surrounding rocks. The key prospecting areas were inferred by delineating intrusive rock boundaries via boundary enhancement and edge detection methods, and one of the areas was verified by drilling.