الملخص الإنجليزي
It is important to understand the financial risk involved in any business venture and recent economic conditions make this even more critical. There are a variety of tools and techniques that when used with modern GIS and the mineral system concept allow sophisticated economic risk analysis to be carried out, including assessing uncertainty. A weights of evidence model for VMS copper-gold mineralisation was created for the northern part of the Semail Ophiolite Belt in Oman and this has been used in conjunction with economic modelling to target, prioritise and plan follow-up exploration. Individual predictor themes of geology, geochemistry and geophysical data were combined into a single predictive map for VMS copper-gold mineralisation. The immediate benefits of carrying out this type of analysis include effective data compilation, quality control of digital data, understanding of critical geological factors to be used in follow-up exploration, ranking of prospects, prioritising exploration, exploration budgeting and management, understanding of risk and cost reduction. The prospectivity model identified 79 targets above an upper threshold in the study area. Nine of the targets are known historic mines or current operations, 11 of the targets are known undeveloped prospects and 59 of the targets are new unexplored prospects. The prospectivity model was not only used to target, but also used to plan new exploration programs to collect missing data that could add the most value to developing the target. Economic factors were developed for each of the targets identified by the modelling to allow a more complete understanding of the exploration risk. This allows targets with differing geology, amounts of metal and economic factors to be compared, ranked and prioritised. An exploration risk value was calculated by combining the geological probability values with the economic parameters so that positive exploration risk values were considered to be potential investment targets whereas targets with negative risk values were considered being more of a gamble. There are twenty-six targets in the study area with positive exploration risk values, which not only confirm the study areas' prospectivity, but also economic potential. The work in Oman confirms the potential for new discoveries in the region, which even at low copper prices still make attractive exploration targets.
