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Abstract
The amphibolite-facies metabasaltic rocks of the Mine Mafic Package at Plutonic Gold Mine, Western Australia, contain an estimated endowment of 10·5 Moz of Au. A preliminary study based on portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analyses identified a geochemical stratigraphy which strongly controlled the location of Au mineralisation. The present study incorporates a significantly larger pXRF dataset and presents the data in a three-dimensional framework. This dataset allows an investigation of the mineralogy of Au mineralisation with varying geochemical associations across the deposit. Historically, high As content in the mill feed resulted in poor metallurgical performance. Seamless data integration of the pXRF dataset allows for recognition of the different styles of Au mineralisation based on Au/As ratios, and visualisation of the distribution of these different mineralogical associations in three dimensions. This work enables us to better predict the As concentration of underground ore blocks, and to be proactive in optimising the mill configuration to improve metallurgical performance.
The authors thank laboratory staff at Plutonic Gold Mine for preparing and analysing the data presented in this paper. Funding for this research, and permission to publish this data, comes jointly from Barrick Australia Pacific Ltd and CSIRO Minerals Down Under Flagship. The authors also acknowledge the constructive comments of Steve Barnes, Mike Nugus, and anonymous reviewers. This paper has been modified and reproduced with the kind permission of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy from the 8th International Mining Geology Conference, 22–24 August, 2011, Queenstown, New Zealand.