MIN E 310: ORE RESERVE ESTIMATION

Winter Term 2010

Assignment One
This assignment is due on Monday January 18th. Please cite all collaborators and sources of information. Consider a bitumen rich deposit with a lease limit that measures 1400m by 1400m. For preliminary exploration purposes, the lease has been sampled at 12 locations. The following data have been collected from the core:
Hole ID DDH1 DDH2 DDH3 DDH4 DDH5 DDH6 DDH7 DDH8 DDH9 DDH10 DDH11 DDH12 X 400 700 650 400 1250 1000 1150 700 1150 750 800 200 Y 300 900 1050 1100 1200 1000 200 400 750 800 400 450 Thickness (m) Bitumen (%) 25 28 27 25 24 26 25 26 24 30 24 24 9 15 14 10 7 14 6 10 13 17 6 11 Fines (%) 21 9 13 19 21 15 21 11 17 7 19 19

Where X is the east direction and Y is the north direction, thickness is the thickness of the bitumen bed, bitumen (%) is the mass percent bitumen, and fines (%) is the mass percent of fine particulate in the sample. Use a specific gravity of 1.8 for bitumen. Question #1: Using the above information draw contour maps of the thickness (24-29m in 1m intervals), percent bitumen (6-16% in 2% intervals), and percent fines (8-20% in 2% intervals) to the lease limits. Critically evaluate each of the maps and comment on the results. Question #2: Estimate the tonnes, average grade, average thickness, and average percent fines contained in the deposit. Question #3: What would the average grade of the recovered ore be at a cut off grade of 10% bitumen? How do the tonnes and grade change when the bitumen cutoff changes from 8% to 14%? Question #4: What would be the average percent fines if a fines cutoff of 15% in addition to a 10% bitumen cutoff were implemented?

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