2-D Subsurface Electrical Resistivity Investigations for Mineral Exploration of Uwanoba, South-South Nigeria

Abstract

Mineral exploration is a complete sequence of activities. It ranges between searching for a new mineral prospect (reconnaissance) and evaluation of the property for economic mining (feasibility study). It also includes augmentation of additional ore reserves and resources in the mine and total mining district. Most people in the Western World are environmentalists at heart whether engaged in the mineral exploration or extraction industries or not. The mining and quarrying companies are simply responding to Society’s desire and demand for houses, washing machines, and cars with roads on which to drive them, and so on. Two stark facts that the majority of ordinary people understand are first that ore bodies are wasting assets (that is, once an ore body is being exploited it has become a wasting asset and one day there will be no ore, no mine, and no further cash flow) and second that they are not evenly distributed throughout the Earth’s crust. The study area is Uwanoba and its environs, Edo state, Nigeria.  The research in this environment unveiled the hidden rocks and minerals that were not captured during the conventional aeromagnetic and satellite imaging of   rocks and minerals. The wenner alpha electrode configuration was deplored throughout in this study and Pasi Earth Resistivity Meter was utilized. Ten profiles were carried out; each profile is 200 metres long, and 50 metres apart. The low resistivity material with average apparent resistivity value below 1675 Ωm is interpreted to be clayey sand/ shalely sand, the medium (median) resistivity material with average apparent resistivity values between 1675 Ωm and 3500 Ωm which depicts coastal plain sand/ fine sand, and the high apparent resistivity material above 3500Ωm on the average is interpreted to be coarse dry sand.