O aumento substancial de informações geológicas nos últimos anos contribuiu muito para o conhecimento do potencial mineral do Brasil. Entretanto, ainda há muito a ser estudado. A geofísica, especialmente baseada em métodos potenciais e gamaespectrométricos, tem grande aplicabilidade na delimitação de estruturas geotectônicas e na localização de alvos exploratórios minerais. Neste trabalho focalizamos a interpretação da emissão de radiação gama natural detectada na superfície associada aos principais radioelementos. Para tal, apresentamos uma descrição das características do aerolevantamento e das correções realizadas. A interpretação de dados gamaespectrométricos permite caracterizar regiões com unidades litológicas indivisas, detectar a presença de intrusões ígneas aflorantes, elementos hidrográficos, alteração hidrotermal e/ou intensos processos erosivos, contribuindo significativamente para o entendimento de uma região. Para ilustrar a contribui- ção, apresentamos como estudos de caso a análise de dados da região do Batólito Granítico de Santa Helena (MT) e do Complexo Alcalino-Carbonatítico de Tapira (MG).

Mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM), like other geoscience fields, is subject to a variety of uncertainties. When data about unfavorable sites to find deposits (i.e., drill intersections to barren rocks) is lacking in MPM using machine learning (ML) methods, the synthetic generation of negative datasets is required. As a result, techniques for selecting point locations to represent negative examples must be employed. Several approaches have been proposed in the past; however, one can never be certain that the points chosen are true negatives or, at the very least, optimal for training. As a consequence, methodologies that account for the uncertainty of the generation of negative datasets in MPM are needed. In this paper, we compare two criteria for selecting negative examples and quantify the uncertainty associated with this process by generating 400 potential maps for each of the three ML methods utilized (200 maps for each criterion), which include random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), and k-nearest neighbors (KNC). The results showed that applying a geological constraint to the creation of negative datasets reduced prediction uncertainty and improved overall model performance but produced larger areas of very high probability (i.e., >0.9) when compared to using only the spatial distribution of known deposits and occurrences as a constraint. SHAP values were used to find approximations for the importance of features in nonlinear methods, and kernel density estimations were used to examine how they varied depending on the negative dataset used to train the ML models. Prospectivity models for magmatic-hydrothermal gold deposits were generated using data from the shuttle radar terrain mission, gamma-ray, magnetic lineaments, and proximity to dykes. The Juruena Mineral Province, situated in Northern Mato Grosso, Brazil, represented the case study for this work.