Mining metallogenic association rules combining cloud model with Apriori algorithm

Spatial data mining refers to extracting and “mining” the hidden, implicit, valid, novel and interesting spatial or non-spatial patterns or rules from large-amount, incomplete, noisy, fuzzy, random, and practical spatial databases. Spatial association rules mining is extracted implicit association rules from spatial database. Many metallogenic association rules lie in geology spatial database. In this paper, a method for mineral resources prediction is proposed, which mainly including uncertainty transmission between qualitative and quantitative geology spatial data using cloud model, metallogenic association rules extracting using Apriori algorithm, and comprehensive assessment of rules. At last, an experiment of iron resources prediction is performed in Eastern Kunlun Mountains, China. The results indicated that the method proposed in this paper is suitable for regional metallogenic prediction.