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Classification of Gold Deposit Types Based on Machine Learning and Pyrite Trace Element Geochemistry
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Jinghui NIU1, Minggang WU2, Fuquan TIAN3, Dunfang QIU3, Zichong SONG3, Yonglin ZHANG4, Dejiang FAN1, Shihua ZHONG1, *
Northwestern Geology | 2026, 59(4) : 20 - 29
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Northwestern Geology | 2026, 59(4): 20-29
Classification of Gold Deposit Types Based on Machine Learning and Pyrite Trace Element Geochemistry
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Jinghui NIU1, Minggang WU2, Fuquan TIAN3, Dunfang QIU3, Zichong SONG3, Yonglin ZHANG4, Dejiang FAN1, Shihua ZHONG1, *
Affiliations
  • 1College of Marine Geosciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, Shandong, China
  • 2Jiangxi Vocational Technical College of Industry and Trade, Nanchang 330038, Jiangxi, China
  • 3Shandong Gold Mining Industry (Jinxing) Co., LTD, Qingdao 266748, Shandong, China
  • 4Shandong Gold Mining Industry (Laixi) Co., LTD, Qingdao 266715, Shandong, China
Published: 2026-08-20 doi: 10.12401/j.nwg.2026004
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Pyrite is the most common gold bearing mineral in gold deposits, and its geochemical composition can effectively indicate mineralization processes. This study systematically compiles trace element data of pyrite from epithermal, porphyry, and orogenic gold deposits worldwide. Nine commonly used geochemical features are selected, and three machine learning models including the K nearest neighbors algorithm, random forest, and support vector machine are employed for model training, with the aim of establishing an efficient and accurate method for identifying gold deposit types based on pyrite composition. The evaluation results of model classification performance show that the classification accuracies of the trained K nearest neighbors, random forest, and support vector machine models are 0.89, 0.96, and 0.95, respectively. In addition, pyrite compositional data from the East Kunlun orogenic gold deposits that are not involved in model training are used for independent validation to assess the applicability and accuracy of the models in practical scenarios. The results indicate that all three models correctly identify these pyrites as mainly derived from orogenic gold deposits, among which the support vector machine model achieves the best performance with an accuracy of 0.88. To address the black box issue in machine learning, an interpretable machine learning method is further introduced to quantify the contributions of different pyrite trace element features to the classification results. The SHAP analysis reveals that As, Co, and Cu are the three most influential trace element features for distinguishing porphyry and orogenic gold deposits, whereas Cu, As, and Ni exert the greatest influence on the identification of epithermal gold deposits. The results demonstrate that trace elements in pyrite can serve as effective indicators for discriminating genetic types of gold deposits. In the future, combined with machine learning approaches, pyrite composition has the potential to be further extended to the identification and classification of other types of mineral deposits, providing new technical approaches for studies on ore genesis and mineral exploration prediction.

K-nearest neighbor  /  random forest  /  support vector machine  /  Pyrite  /  trace elements
牛警徽, 吴明刚, 田福泉, 邱敦方, 宋子崇, 张永林, 范德江, 钟世华. 基于机器学习和黄铁矿微量元素识别金矿床类型. 西北地质, 2026 , 59 (4) : 20 -29 . DOI: 10.12401/j.nwg.2026004
Jinghui NIU, Minggang WU, Fuquan TIAN, Dunfang QIU, Zichong SONG, Yonglin ZHANG, Dejiang FAN, Shihua ZHONG. Classification of Gold Deposit Types Based on Machine Learning and Pyrite Trace Element Geochemistry[J]. Northwestern Geology, 2026 , 59 (4) : 20 -29 . DOI: 10.12401/j.nwg.2026004
Year 2026 volume 59 Issue 4
159
75
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Article Info
doi: 10.12401/j.nwg.2026004
  • Receive Date:2025-12-01
  • Online Date:2026-09-16
  • Published:2026-08-20
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History
  • Received:2025-12-01
  • Revised:2026-04-22
  • Accepted:2026-04-23
Affiliations
    1College of Marine Geosciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, Shandong, China
    2Jiangxi Vocational Technical College of Industry and Trade, Nanchang 330038, Jiangxi, China
    3Shandong Gold Mining Industry (Jinxing) Co., LTD, Qingdao 266748, Shandong, China
    4Shandong Gold Mining Industry (Laixi) Co., LTD, Qingdao 266715, Shandong, China
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表12种不同金属材料的力学参数
科
Family
属数
Number of
genus
种数
Number of
species
占总种数比例
Percentage of
total species (%)
属
Genus
种数
Number of
species
占总种数比例
Percentage of total
species (%)
鹅膏菌科Amanitaceae 2 11 5.26 鹅膏菌属 Amanita 10 4.78
小菇科 Mycenaceae 2 12 5.74 丝盖伞属 Inocybe 5 2.39
多孔菌科 Polyporaceae 8 14 6.70 蜡蘑属 Laccaria 5 2.39
红菇科 Russulaceae 3 23 11.00 小皮伞属 Marasmius 6 2.87
小菇属 Mycena 11 5.26
光柄菇属 Pluteus 5 2.39
红菇属 Russula 17 8.13
栓菌属 Trametes 5 2.39
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