Soil, geochemical, microbiological, and archeological studies were conducted at eight settlements dating from the Paleolithic to Late Medieval and Modern Ages near the southern Trans-Urals Mountains, Russia. The forest-steppe landscapes, rivers, and abundant mineral resources have attracted people to the region since ancient times. Cultural layers (CLs) are marked by finds of ceramics fragments…
Mineral exploration campaigns are financially risky. Several state-of-the-art methods have been developed to mitigate the risk, including predictive modelling of mineral prospectivity using principal component analysis (PCA) and geographic information systems (GIS). The PCA and GIS approach is currently considered acceptable for generating mineral exploration targets. However, some of its limit…