Preliminary Exploration of Copper Minerals in Jebal Barez Mountains, Iran

Copyright © 2013 Mohammad Yousef Mahmoodi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribu-tion License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc (UDMA) is known as a belt with copper and some other metal deposits. The study area is a part of Jebal Barez Mountains located in southeastern of the belt in Iran. Two types of deposits are known in the belt. Semicircular patterns of altered rocks associated with Eocene to Miocene intrusive rocks are known as por-phyry copper deposits and linear altered rock patterns associated with extensive faults or dikes indicate potential epi-thermal or polymetalic vein deposits. In order to clarify the relationship between faults and mineralization, at first al-teration zones have been mapped by using remote sensing methods. Then by geological maps and satellites images, most of faults have been revealed and mapped. Based on calculated photolineament factors in smaller districts, a con-touring map was drawn. Although assumed faults are pathways for hydrothermal fluid, in regional scale because of dif-ference of geometry, kinematic and timing of faults, all of them have not the same value for mineralization but insist on density of faults and value of photolineament factors can be more useful for preliminary exploration of copper minerals