Earth Sciences Pakistan (ESP)

The main aim of this work was to identify pathfinder elements associated with gold mineralization at
Aboduabo and identify the different elements associated with mineralization within the Aboduabo prospect. The geochemical data was obtained from 107 soil samples which were analyzed for 50 elements. The 50 elements were evaluated using multivariate statistical methods. Principal Components and Factor Analyses were used to reduce the data into ten groups and Cluster Analysis conducted to find elements associated with gold hence serving as pathfinders for gold. In order to identify the pathfinders for gold, descriptive statistics, scatterplot diagrams, component matrix, and a dendrogram was made. Principal Components, Factor and Cluster Analyses were conducted using the SPSS software. The ten Components extracted 85.656% of the explained variance in the variables. The first principal component extracted 34.040% of variability with large positive loadings from titanium, tin, germanium, and manganese which have their sources from the Birimian metasediments such as phyllite, schist and greywacke. The third loading although it has Au as the dominant factor, also has some positive associations with As, Na, Co, Ni, Sr, Rb, Ce, Mn, and Te which explained 8.856% of the total variance, Ni, Co, Mn, and Sr which are linked to the underlying mafic rocks such as basalts, dolerites, and diorites. Cluster Analysis on the elements reduced the whole data to four clusters. The first cluster consisted of Ga, Sc, Fe, Zr, Pb, La, Sr, Y, Li, Al, Th, As, Au, Cr, V, Cu, Zn, Ni, Ce, Ba, and Co. In the study area, As, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, Ba, Ce, Co, Cr, La, Sr, Y, and Li were shown to be gold pathfinders. These findings suggest that both primary and secondary processes contributed to the occurrence of gold and the elements it is associated with. Copper, nickel, lead, zinc, barium, cerium, cobalt, chromium, lanthanum, strontium, yttrium, lithium can be used as pathfinders for gold in the area whiles arsenic can be used as the main pathfinder for gold mineralization at Aboduabo.