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Rank statistical analysis of nickel sulphide resources of the Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt, Western Australia

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Abstract

Estimating the undiscovered mineral resources of a terrane is a challenging, yet essential, task in mineral exploration. We apply Zipf’s law rank statistical analysis to estimate the undiscovered nickel sulphide resources in the Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt, Western Australia. The analysis suggests that about 3.0 to 10.0 Mt of nickel sulphide resources are yet to be discovered in this belt, compared to the currently known total nickel sulphide endowment of 10.8 Mt. This undiscovered nickel sulphide endowment is likely to be hosted by incompletely delineated deposits and undiscovered deposits in less explored komatiites in the belt. Using the more detailed data subset of the Kambalda domain, this study manipulates Zipf’s law to estimate the sizes of undiscovered deposits, in addition to the domain’s total nickel sulphide endowment estimate. Importantly, regression analysis shows that the gradient of the line of best fit through the logarithmic rank-size plot for the detailed Kambalda data subset is −1. This gradient, which is the key Zipf’s law constant k, has the value of −0.92 for the Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt which is collectively less mature than the Kambalda domain. This result corroborates the use of k = −1 in Zipf’s law predictive analyses of mineral resources for deposit populations for which the value of k = −1 has not yet been attained due to exploration immaturity.

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Acknowledgements

This paper draws from Antony Mamuse’s Ph.D. research which was funded through a Curtin University Ph.D. scholarship, supported by Intierra Resources Pty Ltd. and the Centre for Exploration Targeting (a joint venture between Curtin University of Technology and The University of Western Australia). The manuscript benefited from constructive comments from Dr. Alok Porwal, two anonymous Mineralium Deposita reviewers, and Pat William’s editorial handling.

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  1. Centre for Exploration Targeting, Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University, P.O. Box U1987, Perth, 6845, Australia

    Antony Mamuse & Pietro Guj

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  1. Antony Mamuse
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  2. Pietro Guj
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Correspondence to Antony Mamuse.

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Editorial handling: C. Li

Appendix

Appendix

Table 2 Known and Zipf’s law-predicted nickel endowment in the Kalgoorlie Terrane (after Mamuse 2010 and Mamuse et al. 2010)
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Mamuse, A., Guj, P. Rank statistical analysis of nickel sulphide resources of the Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt, Western Australia. Miner Deposita 46, 305–318 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00126-011-0333-z

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