Applied Geostatistics for Ore Reserve Estimation

This course will present the properties and applications of methods of ore reserve estimation with respect to the geological setting of the deposit and the mining approaches to be considered at various stages in the appraisal of a mineral project. Specifically, the course will cover the following topics: data acquisition, data validation, 3D geological modelling, quantifying spatial continuity using the variogram function, variogram modeling, spatial models of grade distribution (polygonal methods, inverse distance, various forms of kriging), uncertainty in grade estimation, assessing smoothing in mineral model and correction methods, introduction to conditional simulations. (lec 3) 3 cr.