Abstract

A systematic procedure is described for the preparation and digitization of geological maps, various geophysical and geomorphological maps, and the distribution pattern of mineral occurrences in a Precambrian terrain area in Northwestern Manitoba, Canada.

The complete task consisting of input preparation, digitization, preprocessing and processing, can be carried out by one person, using a minicomputer equipped with a small graphic tablet digitizer, several display \&vices, and specially developed Fortran software.

Map patterns of boundaries are transformed into digital images which are mosaics of subimages in registration with each other. From the binary images of boundaries, the pixels occupying the areas of the various map unit are labeled and a binary compressed image lone bit per pixel) is extracted for each map unit for additional processing. Logical operations between binary images and neighborhood transformations are computed with the limited degree of parallellism permitted by the word length in the minicomputer (sixteen bits per word). The quantitative characterization of binary geological patterns by parallel processing, is based on concepts of mathematical morphology.

This paper deals with the development of methods for statistical; mineral potential estimation from systematically quantified geoscience data. When conditions favourable to mineralization can be identified on geological map patterns, the geometric probabilities associated with these patterns can be combined with the probabilities associated with the distribution of mineral occurrences.

Date of this Version

1980

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