Mineral Deposit Evaluation

Although aspects of mineral deposit evaluation advantages and disadvantages of each technique are covered in such texts as McKinstry (1948), so that a judgement can be made as to their Peters (1978), Reedman (1979) and Barnes applicability to a particular deposit and the min­ (1980), no widely available in-depth treatment of ing method proposed or used. Too often, a lack the subject has been presented. It is thus the of this expertise results in the ore-reserve calcula­ intention of the present book to produce a text tion being undertaken at head-office or, indeed, by the survey department on the mine, and being which is suitable for both undergraduate and treated as a 'number crunching' or geometric postgraduate students of mining geology and exercise divorced from geology. It is essential mining engineering and which, at the same time, that mine ore-reserves are calculated at the mine is of use to those already following a professional by those geologists who are most closely associ­ career in the mining industry. An attempt has ated with the local geology and who are thus best been made to present the material in such a way able to influence and/or constrain the calculation.