ISATIS

Narrow Vein Modeling and

Resource Estimation

Mark Sweeney

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 Mark Sweeney

► Current Position Resource Geology – Geostatistics

Mining Associates Pty Ltd Brisbane

► Career History: Strategy Optimisation Systems Brisbane

Snowden Mining Consultants Perth

Rio Tinto - Technical Services Melbourne

Rossing Uranium Namibia

Witwatersrand gold fields RSA
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 Masbate Gold Mine

Thank you’s

► Thistle Mining - Masbate Gold Mines

► Johan Raadsma - Technical Manager

► Geoff Boswell - Manager Geology

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 Masbate - Philippines

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 Masbate Gold Deposit

4 km

2 km
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 Isatis – Masbate Success Story

Presentation falls into two sections:

► Geological Modeling - SURPAC

► Resource Estimation - ISATIS

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 Isatis – Masbate Success Story

Geological Modeling

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 Domaining
GEOSTATISTICS NOT WORKING CORRECTLY
(....are you ignoring the geology)

fudge factors
► -- generally known as Mine Call Factors
(MCF’s) or Survey Loss Factors (SLF’s)
► -- have been used for over 100 years c.f.
the Witwatersrand gold mines

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 Domaining
Back to basics:

► ……FIRST DO THE GEOLOGY !!!!!!!!

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 Masbate - History
► Gold province.

► History of large
scale bulk mining.

► Small scale mining

by locals.

► Targeting high
grades

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 Domaining
Analogy: - measuring the height of grass

Unconstrained Geology
Grass Thickness

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 Domaining
Unconstrained Geology – apply a cutoff grade
(COG) e.g. 0.7
Under- estimation
COG Over-estimation
of grade
of grade

0.7

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 Domaining
Hard Boundaries - domaining reduces stationarity issues
- globally correct T, G, M
Grass Thickness
(COG)
- locally correct T, G, M

0.7

geology boundaries Page 13

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 Domaining
Vein Material:

► Vein grades 4 times stockwork grades

► All grades within veins are above economic
cutoff grade (<1 g/t Au)
► Ordinary Kriging applied to determine
panel grades within vein boundaries.

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 Surpac - Geological Modeling
Stockwork Material:

► Lower grades around economic cut-off

► Sporadic high grade intersections.
► Blocks too large to capture localized higher
grades.

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 Isatis – Automated Domaining
Automated Vein
Modeling:

► Vein too complex

► Compliance issues
JORC etc!

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 Isatis – Data Analysis
What do we know?:

► Veins well defined

► 2 m to 5 m width
► 4:1 grade contrast

► Require hard
boundary models

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 Masbate
Geology counts!! HIGH GRADE VEIN

STOCKWORK

‘PATCHY’ ORE
GRADES

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 Geological Modeling - Surpac
► Wireframes generated
in Surpac.

► Composites and block

model exported to
ISATIS.

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 Isatis – Geostatistical Software
Isatis:
► Industry standard for Geostatistical
Software
► Complete suite of geostatistical tools.
► Enhanced statistical functions.
► Seamless integration most major geological
modelling system.

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 Isatis - Data Import
► Composites imported directly into Isatis
► Multi format import types:

►ASCII
►Excel
►Vulcan
►Datamine
►Surpac
►Gemcom

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 Isatis – Data Analysis
….....understand your data !!!!!!!!

► Identify high grade

trends

► Identify outlier grades

► Stationarity issues

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 Isatis – Data Analysis
0.07

0.06

Frequencies
0.05

0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01

0.00
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3

Gau_gold

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 Structural Complexity
► Need to model vein
material separately.

► Stockwork material too

low grade to be
included with the vein
ore.

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 Isatis – Composite Selection

Graphical

Logical

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 Grade Cutting – Spatial Distribution
Mask higher grade
0.4
samples
Frequencies

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
0 5 10 15

gold

Review spatial
distribution of
high grades
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 Grade Cutting – Statistics & Quartiles

Basic Statistics

Reporting

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 Isatis - Grade Cutting

Define variables

Grade cut formula

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 Isatis - Declustering
► Remove effects of clustered data – effective distn.
► Gives effective weighting to clustered higher grades
► Give initial indication of global krige grades

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 Isatis - Declustering
Cell Declustering Analysis
7

4 raw mean

3
4m vertical
4m vertical
2 2m vertical
-10%
1
10

20

25

50
5

5
w

2.

5x
Ra

x
5x

10

20

25

50
2.

Declustering size

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 Isatis - Variography N89 D-54
5
N7-
D8
6
3
ND
00
3
V N30D50 W
X (m) 3
N-
D8
6 N0
31
D0
N104 D-37 N331D-54 N30D-10
N30 D70

N316 D-37 N30 D-30

N 113 D-19
D 90
N 307 D-1 9 N30 D-5 0
29500 29600
N 1 20 N2 1 0 UD 7 0 V
26700 26700
N2 93 D 19 D -90
N12 7 D1 9 N 210 D50
N284 D37 N210 D-70
26600 26600
N136 D37 N269 D54 N210 D30 N210D-50

Y (m)
Y (m)

N1
4D0
2 2
N7
36
D8 N0
1
2D3
-0
N
N62
151D1
74
D5 W N210 D10 Di s ta n c e ( m)
9
1
ND0
2
26500 26500 N82 D13
1
N3
86
D8
N358D17
2
N0
1D0
1
-

N338 D13 0. 0 0 0 . 25 0 .5 0 0. 7 5 1 . 00 1 .2 5
0.3 0.3 0
.
3
=
t
u
c
l
a
:
m
r
g
o
i
V
N10 1 D7
26400 26400 N 319 D7
0.2 0.2

N 1 20 U

0.1 0.1
29500 29600 N2 81 D -7
Distance (m) N13 9 D- 7

N262 D-13 0
.
3
=
t
u
c
l
a
:
m
r
g
o
i
V 0 . 00. 0 0 0 . 25 0 .5 0 0. 7 5 1 . 00 1 .2 5 0 . 0

N242 D-17
N158 D-13
2
N1
2-
D0
2
Di s ta n c e ( m)
X (m) N178D-17
0 50 100 150 200 9
1
N9-
D0
2

1.25 1.25
V
a
r
i
o
g
m
:
u
_
D90
1.00 1.00

0.75 N0 0.75

0.50 0.50
N90
V
a
r
i
o
g
m
:
u
_ 0.25 0.25

0.00 0.00
0 50 100 150 200

Distance (m) Page 31

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 Isatis – Data Transformation
gau_gold

-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
0.3 0.20 0.20

0.15 0.15

Frequencies
Frequencies

Frequencies
0.2

0.10 0.10

0.1
0.05 0.05

0.0 0.00 0.00

0 5 10 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4

gold gau_gold

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 Isatis – Gaussian Transforms

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 Isatis - Gaussian Variography
Raw Variable Transformed Variable
Distance (m) Distance (m)

0 100 200 300 400 0 100 200 300 400

Variogram : gau au vn=1

Variogram : gau au vn=1

300 300
1.25 1.25
N0 N45
Variogram : au

Variogram : au
1.00 1.00
200 200
N90 0.75 N315 0.75

0.50 0.50
100 100
D-90 D90
0.25 0.25

0 0 0.00 0.00
0 100 200 300 400 0 100 200 300 400

Distance (m) Distance (m)

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 Isatis - Kriging Parameters
► Block size critical
► Graphically observe
block sizes
► Block size and data
density

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 Isatis - Kriging Parameters
► Graphical interface

► Observe kriging
weights

► Improve kriging
strategies

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 Quadrant Search
► Quickly identify
improvements to kriging

► Remove bias due to

clustering of data

► Improve outcomes with

mixed data sets.

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 Isatis – Uniform Conditioning
Objectives:
Estimate the distribution of smaller SMU blocks
within a larger kriged panel. All that is needed is:
• kriged panel grades, and
• semivariogram

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 Isatis – Uniform Conditioning

ISATIS inputs for UC:

► Require Kriged Model

► Panel Anamorphosis (SV)
► Block Anamorphosis (SV)
► Cut-off Grades required

……….and RUN!!!! ”
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 Isatis - Non-Linear Results

UC RESULTS - SW
Grade Tonnes Tonnes Tonnes
COG Grade COG (No. blocks) (% of tot. blks)
M{0.0} 0.58 T{0.0} 6,820
M{0.5} 0.83 T{0.5} 3,496 51%
M{0.6} 0.93 T{0.6} 2,631 39%
M{0.7} 1.03 T{0.7} 1,934 28%
M{0.8} 1.14 T{0.8} 1,406 21%
M{0.9} 1.25 T{0.9} 1,019 15%
M{1.0} 1.36 T{1.0} 741 11%
M{1.2} 1.58 T{1.2} 401 6%
M{1.5} 1.91 T{1.5} 170 2%
M{1.7} 2.12 T{1.7} 100 1%
M{2.0} 2.43 T{2.0} 46 1%

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 Isatis - Global Change of Support

Discrete Gaussian Global Change of Support (GCOS)

Isatis Flavour

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 Isatis - Global Change of Support

Objectives of Discrete Gaussian global change of

support (GCOS):

► Rigorous change of support for any SMU size.

► GCOS results used to verify UC post-processing results.

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 Isatis - Global Change of Support

GCOS:

► Semivariogram
► SMU sizes

► Rigorous change
of support

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 GCOS - UC Check
6

GCOS: ( SMU size )

2.0
5 1.9
1.8
21.7 UC Estimate ( SMU size ) GT curve
Grade above Cutoff (g/tAu)

1.6
1.5
4 1.7 1.4
1.3
1.5 1.2
1.1
1.0
3 1.2 0.9
0.8
1 0.7
0.9 0.6
2 0.8 0.5
0.7 0.4
0.6 0.3
0.5 0.2
0.1 -

1 -

0.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Tonnes above Cutoff (%)

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 Isatis - UC Check using GCOS
Grade Analysis Tonnage Analysis

Deposit UC GCOS Grade UC GCOS Tonnes

Grade Grade Difference Tonnes Tonnes Difference
(g/t Au) (g/t Au) (% ) (% t) (% t) (% )

Holy Moses / 1.03 1.10 -6% 28 26 +2%

Basalt

Colorado 0.91 0.97 -6% 29 27 +2%

Main Vein / Libra 0.90 0.98 -9% 36 34 +2%

Bin Star / Doris 0.82 0.99 -17% 38 32 +6%

Panique 0.82 0.99 -17% 29 28 +1%

Montana 0.84 0.88 -5% 23 26 -3%

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 Masbate Study
Lessons learned:

► domaining required in areas of high grade contrasts

► domaining reduces local misclassification of ore and waste

► domaining significantly alters grade tonnage curve

► domaining results in higher grades and lower tonnes

► domaining can improve project economics e.g. NPV

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 Masbate Study
Project Enhancements:

► Improved mining selectivity.

► Improved head grades, increased ore
tonnes.
► Increased value of resource.

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 Masbate Study
Isatis Contribution:

► Improved kriging parameters

► Application of non-linear techniques
► Identified additional value in the stockwork
► GCOS technique increased confidence in
non-linear results.

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 Isatis

► Easy to use
► Integrates with all major geological software
► Fast processing of data
► Geostatistical tools improve estimates
► Increases confidence in results

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