AIRBORNE SPECTROMETRY AND MAGNETOMETRY OF WADI DUNQUSH AREA, SOUTH EASTERN DESERT, EGYPT, IN SUPPORT OF GEOLOGICAL MAPPING AND MINERAL EXPLORATION

Abstract

The studied Wadi Dunqush area is located at the southern part of the Egyptian Eastern Desert, about 160 km. southwest ofMersa Alam. This area comprises a wide diversity of igneous, metam01phic and sedimentary rocks ranging in age from the Precambrian to Quaternary time. The present research work is mainly based on the utilization of the aerial multi-channel gamma ray and magnetic survey data acquired over the are<) under consideration as part of < what is referred to as the "MPGAP" project which aimed basically to the assessment of mineral resouroes of a large segment of the Eastern Desert of Egypt.

The present study aims essentially at (I) refining the mapped surfaoe geology of the surveyed area , (2) delineating its surfaoe as well as subsurfaoe structural configuration and (3) identification of anomalous zones of enriched radioelement content that could be provide favorable exploration targets for radioactive mineralizations. Achievement of these main objectives neoessitated the intensive statistical analysis of the digital spectral gamma- ray survey data, using some conventional single variate and multivariate methods of analysis and calculation of the three radioelements fuvorability indioes for the various mapped rock units in the study area. On the other hand, aerial magnetic measurements were analyzed through the application of some conventional frequency domain filtering operations including reduction to the pole filtering and regional-residual separation of magnetic anomalies. Furthermore depth calculations were applied to some selected magnetic anomalies in order to determine the depths of their causative geologic sources. Structural lineaments inferred from the radiometric and filtered magnetic anomaly maps have been statistically analyzed in order to get accounted with the different tectonic trends affected the study area. Besides, 20 - modeling was applied along some selected regional magnetic profiles in order to quantify the geophysically interpreted structural framework of the study area.