Quality control requirements for more reliable mineral deposit and reserve estimates

CIM Bulletin, Vol. 86, No. 969, 1993

Marcel Vallee, Geoconseil Marcel Vallee inc., Sainte-Foy, Quebec, Michel Dagbert, Geostat Systems International, Inc., Montreal, Quebec, and Denis Cote, ROCHE Ltd., Consulting Group, Sainte-Foy, Quebec

Greater reliability of mineral deposit and reserve estimates can be attained through better quality control of the data and information acquisition, and the estimation processes. This paper reviews the following key requirements:1. greater awareness of the significant figures of both data and estimates, and better understanding of the probabilistic aspects of the estimates, their confidence limits and margins of error;2. greater reliability of the information that supports the estimates, by more explicit and more rigorous methods and standards for data acquisition and for interpretations;3. more quantitative estimations of geological/mineral continuity, based on improved three dimensional sampling patterns and the use of geostatistics; and4. better integration at the project engineering and mine production stages, of the mineral deposit characteristics and mining method constraints, for more efficient mineral recovery and mine quality control.

Keywords: Geostatistics, Mineral deposits, Reserve estimates, Geological appraisal, Quality control.