Application of fuzzy logic and geometric average: A Cu sulfide deposits potential mapping case study from Kapsan Basin, DPR Korea

In this paper, two kinds of knowledge-driven methods, one using the fuzzy logic and another using geometric average, were applied to create the mineral potential maps for Cu sulfide deposits in the greenfield Kapsan Basin, DPR Korea. The ore geology studies for the study area have revealed that Cu sulfide deposits of hydrothermal genesis in Kapsan Basin are closely associated with Jurassic intrusions and faulting tectonics. Based on the conceptual model of Cu sulfide deposits and the available spatial datasets in the study area, we used five independent evidential maps for Cu sulfide deposits potential mapping. They include: (1) faults; (2) aeromagnetic anomaly; (3) Cu geochemical data; (4) Pb geochemical data; and (5) Zn geochemical data. The evidential map values were transformed into continuous values of the [0, 1] range using the non-linear fuzzy membership functions; logistic sigmoid and fuzzy Gaussian functions. Because the fuzzy logic and geometric average methods can use the same fuzzification methodology based on suitable membership functions, it is very economic and efficient to simultaneously apply two predictive models for mineral potential mapping of the study area. The preparation of these evidential layers were performed using spatial analyses supported in ArcGIS 10.4 GIS platform based on geological, geophysical and geochemical spatial datasets. The validation and comparative analysis results for the two predictive models demonstrated that most of known mineral occurrences are distributed in areas with high potential values. The target areas classified by the fuzzy logic occupy 15% of the study area and contain 78% of the total number of known mineral occurrences. Compared with the fuzzy logic, the resulting areas by the geometric average occupy 13% of the study area, but contain 93% of the total number of known mineral occurrences. Although the total number of known mineral occurrences is relatively low for the application of ROC (receiver operating characteristics) technique, the areas under the ROC curve (AUC) obtained by two predictive models were greater than 0.5, suggesting that both predictive models and their resulting potential maps are useful for evaluating the prospectivity of Cu sulfide deposits in Kapsan Basin.