With the depletion of mineral resources on land, seafloor massive sulfide deposits have the potential to become as important for exploration, development and mining as those on land. However, it is difficult to investigate the ocean environment where seafloor massive sulfide deposits are located. Thus, improving prospecting efficiency by reducing the exploration search space through mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM) is desirable. MPM has been used in the exploration for seafloor deposits on regional scales, e.g., the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Arctic Ridge. However, studies of MPM on ultraslow-spreading ridges on segment scales to aid exploration for seafloor massive sulfide have not been carried out to date. Here, data of water depth, geology and hydrothermal plume anomalies were analyzed and the weights-of-evidence method was used to study the metallogenic regularity and to predict the potential area for seafloor massive sulfide exploration in 48.7°–50.5° E segments on the ultraslow spreading Southwest Indian Ridge. Based on spatial analysis, 11 predictive maps were selected to establish a mineral potential model. Weight values indicate that the location of seafloor massive sulfide deposits is correlated mainly with mode-E faults and oceanic crust thickness in the study area, which correspond with documented ore-controlling factors on other studied ultraslow-spreading ridges. In addition, the detachment fault and ridge axis, which reflect the deep hydrothermal circulation channel and magmatic activities, also play an important role. Based on the posterior probability values, 3 level A, 2 level B and 2 level C areas were identified as targets for further study. The MPM results were helpful for narrowing the search space and have implications for investigating and evaluating seafloor massive sulfide resources in the study area and on other ultraslow-spreading ridges.

随着陆地上矿产资源的枯竭，海底大量硫化物矿床与陆地上的矿产一样具有潜在的勘探，开发和采矿潜力。但是，很难调查海底大量硫化物沉积物所在的海洋环境。因此，期望通过矿物前景映射（MPM）通过减少勘探搜索空间来提高勘探效率。MPM已用于区域规模的海底沉积物勘探，例如，中大西洋海岭和北极海岭。但是，迄今为止，尚未进行分段规模的超慢扩散脊上MPM的研究，以帮助勘探海底块状硫化物。这里的水深数据 对地质和热液羽流异常进行了分析，并采用证据权重法研究成矿规律，并预测了西南印度洋超慢蔓延的48.7°-50.5°E段海底块状硫化物勘探的潜在面积。基于空间分析，选择了11个预测性地图以建立矿产潜力模型。权重值表明，研究区海底块状硫化物矿床的位置主要与E型断层和洋壳厚度有关，这与其他研究的超慢扩散脊上的成矿控制因素相对应。此外，反映深部热液循环通道和岩浆活动的分离断层和山脊轴线也起着重要作用。根据后验概率值，确定了3个A级，2个B级和2个C级区域作为进一步研究的目标。MPM结果有助于缩小搜索空间，并且对研究区域和其他超慢扩散海脊中的海底块状硫化物资源的调查和评估具有启示意义。