5.

4 Sampling Quality Assurance and Quality Control

The process of mineral resource estimation requires a strict program of quality assurance and quality control
(QA/QC) to provide confidence about the precision and accuracy of the drill hole data used for estimation.
The QA/QC program implemented may have somewhat different characteristics if implemented for mine
operations (production sampling), but it will have the same general objective.
A QA/QC program of an appropriate standard is required by most international resource reporting
standards.
Published resource estimates should be accompanied by a description and statement of the data quality.
This is also a basic item in any third-party review of resource models and may have a significant impact on
the overall perception of the model quality.
There are no universally accepted procedures for QA/QC, although certain basic steps are always
recommended. An outline of a recommended set of procedures, derived mostly for gold sampling, will be
presented. Good general references are Long (1999) and Roden and Smith (2001).
5.4.1 General Principles
The main objective of the QA/QC program is to minimize errors introduced due to sampling, sample
preparation, and sample assaying procedures. The QA/QC program is a continuous process providing
information necessary to correct defects in the shortest amount of time possible.
Accuracy and precision are two terms used to evaluate the quality of the information provided by analytical
laboratories. Accuracy is a measure of the degree of agreement of the assayed sample value to the true
unknown value of that sample. An indication of accuracy can only be obtained through re-assaying samples
of known values such as standards or reference materials.
Precision is a measure of the reproducibility of the sample value, which can be estimated by re-assaying
the same sample a number of times. Precision and accuracy are different concepts. A laboratory could have
any combination of good or bad precision and accuracy.
Figure 5.7 illustrates the concepts of accuracy and precision using the common analogy of the shooter’s
bullseye. The left image shows a precisely inaccurate set of three shots; the center figure shows an accurate
but imprecise series, while the right image shows the case where the shooter has been both accurate and
precise.
All QA/QC check samples sent for analysis to the laboratories should be blind, meaning that the laboratory
should not be able to differentiate a check sample from a regular submission.
The internal checks that analytical laboratories often implement are performed with the technicians being
aware of the fact that they are assaying duplicate samples. These internal checks, often reported by the
laboratories as measures of their sampling precision and accuracy, should never be
considered as part of a formal QA/QC program. This applies both to company-owned and external
laboratories.
The minimum control unit should be the batch of samples sent originally to the laboratory. The batch
concept derives from the fact that gold fire assays are done by oven batches. Typically a set of 40 samples
is introduced into the oven. It is a useful concept that has been extended to other types of assaying in the
context of QA/QC. Any check sample that fails implies that the complete batch to which the control sample
was incorporated should be re-assayed. This applies to drill hole samples, but not necessarily for production
samples, since there is no time tore-assay them. In this case, failed check samples trigger corrective
measures for future as saying.
The sampling QA/QC program should cover (a) sampling conditions in the field; (b) sample preparation;
(c) analytical accuracy and precision; and (d) correctness of the laboratory reports and transfer of the
information to the database(s).
The materials to be used in the QA/QC program include (a) standards, or reference material; (b) blanks,
which are samples with no grade; (c) field duplicates, taken at the drill hole site or core box; (d) coarse
duplicates, taken as the first reject at the sample preparation stage, typically −10 mesh in size; and (e)
pulp duplicates, which are taken from the last size-reduction and splitting at the end of the sample
preparation process.
There are generally two or more laboratories involved that would include a primary or principal laboratory
for routine work, and a secondary or check laboratory. Occasionally, a referee laboratory is needed when
discrepancies between the primary and secondary laboratories cannot to be resolved.
Sampling and assaying protocols are established prior to processing the samples from the field. These
protocols should cover all aspects of sample processing and handling including
chain of custody. The sampling theory originally developed by P. Gy (1982) can be used to determine
optimum sample preparation protocol, such that errors introduced in the preparation and assaying
procedures are minimized (see above).
The sample preparation and assaying protocols should be identical for the primary and secondary
laboratory. The mining company should have a staff person in charge of the overall QA/QC program whose
duties include ensuring that the protocols used at the different labs are consistent. That person should inspect
the facilities on a regular basis.
5.4.2 Elements of a QA/QC Program
5.4.2.1 Blanks
Blanks are samples with no grade of interest whose purpose is to check laboratory contamination and to
verify correct handling of the samples. There should be both pulp and coarse blanks prepared and inserted
into the sample preparation stream. In the case of core samples, the coarse blank is introduced after the first
crushing stage, while the pulp blank should be inserted as a separate envelope in the sample batch.
It is advisable that the blank have the same matrix (mineralogy) and result in a pulp with the same
characteristics as the main samples so it is not obvious to the laboratory that the sample is different in any
way. This is sometimes difficult to achieve, although at least the main characteristics such as color should
be as similar as possible. Very low-grade samples should not be used as proxies for blanks.
5.4.2.2 Standards
Standards are samples for which its grade is known within a certain precision. They are used to check the
accuracy of the analytical laboratories, by comparison of the re-assays to the reference value.
There are commercial standards that can be purchased. They provide samples with known grades for some
types of ore deposits. This material can be purchased from laboratories and institutions around the world.
The standards are delivered with certificates stating the accepted value and its precision, in addition to a
full description of the procedures used to analyze them.
Alternatively, the mining company has the option of developing its own standards. The material used to
obtain the standard is typically from the same deposit as the main sample stream, which ensures that
differences in the sample matrices will be minimal. The certification of standards requires major analytical
work, which can be done through a round robin analysis using no less than 6 laboratories, and
more commonly 8. This work can be managed by the mining company or outsourced to an external
analytical laboratory, which would also be part of the round robin laboratories, and would provide the final
certification for the samples and their corresponding tolerance limits.
If the standards are done using a commercial laboratory, it should be involved in the assaying of the project
samples. The most probable value for the standard should be reported with the ± 2σ (2 standard deviations
of the distribution of all assayed values). These or alternative upper and lower limits should be used as
acceptance criteria for the re-assayed standard.

5.4.2.3 Coarse and Field Duplicates

The purpose of the coarse duplicates is to quantify the variances introduced into the assayed grade by errors
at different sample preparation stages. They provide a measure of the
sample precision. There will commonly be more than one size reduction and splitting steps in the
preparation stage.
These coarse duplicates should be inserted into the primary laboratory stream, providing an estimate of the
sum of the assay variance plus the sample preparation variance, up to the first crushing stage.
An alternative is to obtain a field duplicate. In the case of diamond drilling, a duplicate from the core box
(i.e., a quarter core or the other half core) is sent to the laboratory, most commonly with the intention of
replacing the coarse duplicate. The advantage is that the variance observed in field duplicates
includes the actual sampling and the first size reduction step.
The price of leaving the interval without core may be too high. Also, a quarter core may be too small a
volume for the duplicate to be representative. In the case of reverse circulation drilling, it is more likely
that field duplicates do not exhaust the sample as generally there are abundant chips available.
In the case of blast hole sampling, it is also possible to take a duplicate sample in the field from the cuttings
pile or the reject from the hydrocyclone if an automatic sampler is used. These field duplicates can be used
to check the first stage crushing and sampling process.
5.4.2.4 Pulp Duplicates
Pulp duplicates provide a measure of precision of the analytical procedures used. They are taken at the final
stage of sample preparation, and generally are a second envelope with the 100 or 200 g final sample sent
for assaying, inserted blindly into the sample batch. Pulp duplicates sent to the same primary laboratory
provide an estimate of the analytical variance of that laboratory. When sent to the second, check laboratory,
the pulp duplicates quantify the precision (analytical variance) between the two laboratories.
5.4.3 Insertion Procedures and Handling of Check Material
The basic unit is a batch. This can be defined for drill hole samples, blast hole samples, or any other type
of production samples. A batch should contain sufficient samples to allow the insertion of control samples.
At the same time it cannot be too large to become too difficult to manage, evaluate, or re-assay. For drill
hole samples, it is generally recommended that a batch be no less than 20 samples, and preferably 40
samples. For blast holes and crusher samples, the batch is generally larger and composed of samples from
a fixed timeframe (work shift or day).
For each 40-sample batch, and assuming that the mining company has full control of the sample preparation
stages, the following are the suggested control samples to be sent to the primary laboratory:
1. For drill hole samples:
a. Two blanks (5 % of total number of samples). Of these, insert one coarse blank for
every 4th blank inserted (25 % of the total number of blanks inserted).
b. Two pulp duplicates (5 % of total number of samples).
c. Two coarse duplicates (5 % of total number of samples).
d. Two standards appropriate to the expected grade of the batch samples (5 % of total).
2. For blast hole and crusher samples:
a. One blank (2.5 % of total number of samples).
b. One pulp duplicate (2.5 % of total number of samples).
c. One coarse duplicate (2.5 % of total number of samples).
d. One standard appropriate to the expected grade of the batch samples (2.5 % of total).
This implies that there will be 20 % check samples for exploration data, and 10 % additional control samples
for production data. A second check laboratory should be used for the drill hole samples, but it is not
necessary for production samples. Since production samples are normally processed in-house, an additional
2.5 % of pulp control samples should be sent out for re-assaying at a different laboratory as routine check.
For drill hole samples, the control samples sent to the second (check) laboratory should be from pulp
duplicates in all cases and should include one blank, two sample pulps, and one standard for every 40-
sample batch. This implies an additional 10 % sent to a second laboratory.
There are cases where the mining company or project development team does not have a sample preparation
facility and is not able to control the sample preparation process. For these cases when the sample
preparation is done by the laboratory itself, coarse duplicates should be sent for preparation
and as saying by the second laboratory.
All control samples should have a pre-defined logical sequence of numbers, such that the flow of samples
is easy to control, and the control samples are inserted into the stream in a disguised fashion.