Determination of the relationship between Rare Earth Element (REE) mineralisation and major faults using fractal modelling in the Gazestan deposit, central Iran

The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between Rare Earth Element (REE) mineralisation and major faults in the Gazestan deposit, Bafq metallogenic zone, central Iran, using the Concentration-Distance to Main Fault (C-DMF) fractal model. The C-DMF fractal model is employed for the separation of REE mineralisation based on their distance to major faults obtained by geophysical and drill core data. Major faults were extracted from a geological map, drill cores, and airborne/ground survey magnetometric geophysical data. The C-DMF model of the Gazestan deposit reveals that the main REE mineralisation shows a good correlation to the distance to major faults. Accordingly, the distances of the high REE mineralisation (1251 ppm < REEs ≤ 3091 ppm) show the distance of 6-220 m to the nearest fault. Consequently, the REE concentrations of 1474-2879, 1187-2870, 1419-1628, and 1295-1597 ppm occur at distances of 50-409, 66.8-146, 5-121, and 7-38 m to major magnetic faults in the depth of 50, 100, 150, and 300 m depth horizons. High concentrations of REEs are 2870-3091 ppm, which have distances between 6-90 m to the major magnetic fault in total depths of 50, 100, 150, and 300 m. The Gazestan fault, the major magnetic fault in the area, shows the highest correlation with high REE concentrations. Finally, the C-DMF fractal model can be adopted as a suitable method for separating main mineralisation and detecting the relationship between faults and mineralised zones.