An Application of UAV in Open-pit Gold Deposit Geological Field Mapping

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) can greatly improve the geological field mapping. However, applications of UAV in the investigations of the deposit still remain to be explored. The Liba gold deposit, located at the Li-Min gold belt to the western Qinling orogenic belt, is a typical open-pit gold deposit. The associated (local) landscape and geomorphology provide an excellent natural laboratory to explore the UAV in deposit field mapping. Here, UAV-based photogrammetry was performed to get the aerial photos across the mining area, as well asoutcrop information from the Liba gold mine. In the combination with a detailed field work, alteration zones with the regional faults can be efficiently interpreted and evaluated, both from the macro- to micro scale. According to the work, we established a general working flow of the usage of UAV deposit field exploration to improves the field work. By demonstrating the UAV-based technical applied in Liba, this work can strongly promote the understanding and interpretation of regional geology during the field work.

Key words: Open-pit Gold Deposit, Liba gold deposit, UAV-drone photogrammetry, Geological field mapping