Gold Resources Potential Assessment in Eastern Kunlun Mountains of China Combining Weights-of-evidence Model with GIS Spatial Analysis Technique

Resources potential assessment is one of the fields in geosciences, which is able to take great advantage of GIS technology as a substitution of traditional working methods. The gold resources potential in the eastern Kunlun Mountains, Qinghai Province, China was assessed by combining weights-of-evidence model with GIS spatial analysis technique. All the data sets used in this paper were derived from an established multi-source geological spatial database, which contains geological, geophysical, geochemical and remote sensing data. Three multi-class variables, i.e., structural intersection, Indosinian k-feldspar granite and regional fault, were used in proximity analysis to examine their spatial association with known gold deposits. A prospectivity map was produced by weightsof-evidence model based on seven binary evidential maps, all of which had passed a conditional independence test. The study area was divided into three target zones of high potential, moderate potential and low potential areas, among which high potential areas and moderate potential areas accounted for 20% of the total area and contained 32 of the 43 gold deposits. The results show that the gold resources potential assessment in the eastern Kunlun Mountains has a higher precision.