3D Geological Modeling And Resource Estimates Of A Copper Deposit,Fujian

With the rapid development of China’s economy, the demand for mineralresources of China increases every year, but due to the estimates of mineral resourcesin mineral development is not strict enough, leading to the exploitation of resources isnot reasonable, or even a serious waste of low-grade ore, making many mines facedthe grim situation of being lack of resources. Mine digital construction is conducive toa unified and effective management of mineral resources, improves the geologicalexploration work of mineral resources, improves work efficiency, reduces productioncosts.Digital mine is a product that was developed and integrated from mining science,information science, artificial intelligence, computer technology and3S technology.It’s a more intuitive and visibility mineral resources exploration method. The3Dgeological modeling of deposit is one of the key technologies of digital mine, whichdescribes the shape of geologic bodies in3D space and is great help to minemanagement and mine design.In this paper, we collected the geological exploration data of a copper deposit inFujian province, and analyzed the state of the output of the main orebody, ore gradechange characteristics and laws, based on3D mining software--Surpac to establish thegeological database and the3D geological model of the deposit, including orebodymodel, terrain model, fault model etc; applied classical statistical methods to study thedistribution of copper grade of the deposit and its variation, and composited differentgrades of ore samples in the orebody; applied variogram to analyze the anisotropy ofCu grade’s composite samples in the orebody, established the variogram models of Cugrade’s composite in the direction of strike, dip direction and thickness of orebody;used orebody model as boundary to create a block model and estimated the amount ofresources of the deposit by using geostatistical method combined with block valuationtechniques to perform grade interpolation; validated the reasonableness of resourceestimates work through comparing the values of cross-sectional view and block model,grade-tonnage curves, basic statistical analysis of model values, trend analysis ofgrade, linear regression analysis ect.This paper discussed the operating principles and the problems that should bepaying attention to on the use of mine softwares such as Surpac in3D geologicalmodeling and mine resource estimate based on the experience of this work. It shows that,3D geological modeling of the deposit show people the deposit(orebody) vividlyand visually; using geostatistical methods combined with block valuation techniquesand Surpac mining software to estimate the resources of the deposit and verifying theevaluation results can manage resources dynamically. The method of this paperpromote the process of mine digital construction in this area, and its method chosen toevaluate parameters and principles of resource estimates provides valuable researchmethods for other mines’ relevant work.