Utilization of airborne gamma ray spectrometric data for geological mapping and radioactive mineral exploration of Gabel Umm Tineidba area, south eastern desert, Egypt

Abstract

The present work utilizes airborne gamma ray spectrometric data in a trial to refine surface geology of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks, detect any radioactive mineralization at Gabel Umm Tineidba area South Eastern Desert, Egypt. The study area is covered by rock exposures ranging in age from the Precambrian to Quaternary. Airborne gamma ray spectrometry can be very helpful in mapping surface geology. This provides estimates of the apparent surface concentrations of the most common naturally occurring radioactive elements, such as potassium (K), equivalent uranium (eU) and equivalent thorium (eTh). This is based on the assumption that, the absolute and relative concentrations of these radioelements vary measurably and significantly with lithology. The composite image technique is used to display simultaneously three parameters of the three radioelement concentrations and their three binary ratios on one image. The technique offers much in terms of lithological discrimination, based on color differences and showed efficiency in defining areas, where different lithofacies occur within areas mapped as one continuous lithology. The integration between surface geological information and geophysical data led to detailing the surface geology and the contacts between different rock units. Significant locations or favourable areas for uranium exploration are defined, where the measurements exceed (X+2S), taking X as the arithmetic mean of eU, eU/eTh and eU/K measurements and S as the standard deviation corresponding to each variables. The study area shows the presence of fifteen relatively high uraniferous zone. In addition, the trend analysis based on the total count map and the published geological map shows that, most of the well-developed structural lineaments have NS, ENE, NNE and NNW trends.