Comparing the accuracy of two approaches to account for internal dilution: A case study from a porphyry copper deposit

ABSTRACT

Dilution effects should be considered in the estimated model of deposit due to its significant impact on feasibility studies, mine planning and scheduling, milling, and stockpiling. This work compares the capacity of two approaches for modelling dilution of intrusive barren dykes into the ore body in a copper deposit. Two approaches were used to generate an undiluted model of copper grade in a copper deposit, which is cross cut by intrusive dykes. The results demonstrated that the second approach is more advantageous in comparison with the first approach, especially when there is hard contact between the ore and barren dykes.

KEYWORDS:

• Mineral resource evaluation
• dilution
• hierarchical prediction
• geostatistical simulation

Acknowledgments

The second author acknowledge the funding of the National Agency for Research and Development of Chile, through grants Fondecyt Nº 11220464 (M.M). The third author is grateful to Nazarbayev University for funding this work via Faculty Development Competitive Research Grants 2021–2023 under Contract No. 021220FD4951 (N.M).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo [11220464].