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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ISPRS-Annals</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ISPRS-Annals</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2194-9050</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-661-2026</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Improving Porphyry Copper Prospectivity Mapping with Stacked Ensemble Machine Learning and Feature Contribution Analysis: A Case Study of the Eastern Sirjan 1:250,000 quadrangle map, Iran</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Samiei</surname>
<given-names>Mohammad Reza</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Moradzadeh</surname>
<given-names>Ali</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Pahlavani</surname>
<given-names>Parham</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ghezelbash</surname>
<given-names>Reza</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>PhD student, School of Mining, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>School of Mining, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>29</day>
<month>05</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>X-4/W8-2025</volume>
<fpage>661</fpage>
<lpage>666</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Mohammad Reza Samiei et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/X-4-W8-2025/661/2026/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-661-2026.html">This article is available from https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/X-4-W8-2025/661/2026/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-661-2026.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/X-4-W8-2025/661/2026/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-661-2026.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/X-4-W8-2025/661/2026/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-661-2026.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM) is an essential tool for reducing exploration costs and risks by identifying areas with high mineralization potential. This study employed Support Vector Regression (SVR) and a multilayer perceptron-based Artificial Neural Network (MLP-ANN) to predict porphyry copper prospectivity. To improve accuracy and minimize predictive uncertainty, a stacked ensemble learning strategy was applied, in which the predictions of the two base models served as inputs to a meta-learner. Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) was selected as the meta-learner due to its nonparametric nature and ability in quantifying uncertainty. In an extended version, the original input features were also incorporated together with the SVR and ANN outputs, thereby enhancing the diversity and richness of meta-model&amp;rsquo;s input space. The study area covers the eastern part of the Sirjan 1:250,000 quadrangle map within the Kerman Cenozoic Magmatic Arc (KCMA). Model performance was evaluated using correlation metrics (R and R&amp;sup2;), error indicators (MAE, MSE and RMSE), and prediction&amp;ndash;area (P&amp;ndash;A) analysis. Results showed that the stacked ensemble improved predictive performance compared to individual models. Feature contribution analysis further revealed that GPR could identify negatively contributing features. Removing these features led to a refined GPR model under feature filtering (so-called FF-GPR), which increased the R value to 0.98 and the R&amp;sup2; value to 0.96. This refinement also improved the accuracy of P&amp;ndash;A plot and reduced uncertainty. These findings highlight the effectiveness of feature-augmented stacked ensemble learning, particularly when combined with GPR, in advancing MPM and supporting future exploration.</p>
</abstract>
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