SECONDARY DISPERSION HALOS OF A COPPER-COBALT DEPOSIT IN THE SOUTHERN URALS

Landscape-geochemical analysis of the expressions of blind ore bodies, in the semi-arid grassland environments of the Southern Urals, shows a depression of the migration capacities of copper, nickel, and cobalt and a relative weakness of the corresponding secondary dispersion halos in the geochemical profiles. Such halos are derived from the ore bodies' mineralized host rocks, however, rather than from the ore bodies themselves, in ortho-eluvial and trans-ortho-eluvial landscapes, and, as such, have a certain prospecting usefulness, under the circumstances, particularly where they lie in immature soils or in certain horizons of thin chernozems typical of the region. On the other hand, geochemical prospecting in neo-eluvial landscapes of the area is definitely not recommended. Mechanical dispersion halos and trains are the principal forms of the metals' migration in the region but they too represent mainly the anomalous disseminated mineralization in the host rocks, right next to the ore bodies themselves.--V. P. Sokoloff.