Geochemistry and Determination of Mineral Properties of Dolomite Deposit in Ikpeshi Southern, Nigeria

This work focused on the geochemistry and determination of the mineral properties’ distribution of dolomite deposit from Ikpeshi, using variogram analysis, Samples collected from the study area were subjected to laboratory analysis to determine the porosity, water content and geochemical properties. Variograms maps were constructed and fitted to the model. The results of the variogram analysis were used in plotting of predictive maps which show the property distribution of the dolomite. The porosity varies between 0.68%–3.24% and the Water Content varies between 0.1–1.65%. The geochemical analyses reveal that the average concentration of the elemental oxides is 1.790, 0.461, 0.299, 0.045, 20.380 and 46.130 for SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, MnO, MgO and CaO, respectively. CaO and MgO are more abundant when compared with other major elements; the predictive maps of the distribution and directions of the mineral properties and the distribution are not uniform in all directions which indicates that the mineral properties of the dolomite deposit are anisotropic.