LATERITIC NICKEL LAYER DISTRIBUTION IDENTIFICATION USING GROUND PENETRATING RADAR METHOD IN NORTH KONAWE SOUTHEAST SULAWESI

• Main Author: Ichsan Fauzi, Muhammad
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/71898
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

North Konawe is a district in Southeast Sulawesi that has a big amount of potential nickel reserves. In most area in Konawe Utara consisted of the ultramafic rock which is good to be the place for lateritic nickel formation. In nickel exploration that found in lateritic nickel, there are 4 layers consisting of topsoil, limonite, saprolite, and bedrock. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is used in the investigation of lateritic nickel layer distribution in the area of study. Data acquisition is done by using MALA Rough Terrain Antenna with 25 MHz frequency that able to reach up to 47 m depth. Data processing is done using REFLEXW with steps including the time-zero correction, amplitude gaining, noise correction, filtering, and topography correction. The result shows a contrast in resolution between the laterite and bedrock zone. In the area of study, the average depth of topsoil on limonite is on 0 - 6 m, saprolite on 6 - 30 m, and bedrock on 30 - 47 m. The correlation between the interpreted radargram and drilling data shows good correlation but in several drilling points there is uncorrelation in the depth of limonite and saprolite zone. Analysis based on lithology and geochemistry is done to find what actually happened in the uncorrelated data with result showing that in some points with high moisture content is giving high amplitude meanwhile low moisture content with high silica content is giving low amplitude.