Application of the principal component analysis on geochemical data: a case study in the basement complex of Southern Ilesa area, Nigeria

The study area occupies a part in southern Ilesa and is located within the schist belt of southwestern Nigeria, which embraces undifferentiated schist, gneisses, and migmatites with pegmatites, schist and epidorite complex, quartzite and quartz schist, granite gneiss, amphibolite, pegmatised schist, granulite, and gneiss. The study is aimed at clarifying the potential source of mineralization dealt with before in regional studies. Sixty-one soil samples were collected and analyzed for identifying these elements: Pb, Fe, Ni, Cd, Cr, Cu, Zn, and Mn. Multivariate analysis was done to obtain the coefficients of principal components from the standardized variables The elemental associations from the principal components analysis that accounted for 85.34% variability of the total variance are: Fe–Mn, Pb–Cr, and Cd–Zn. Comparably, these are equivalent with the previous results in the amphibolites and added the extension of association region to involve the schist and epidorite complex, quartzite, and quartz schist. The metallic association ratio revealed high metallic concentrations and led to the mineralization trend in southern Ilesa.