Scholarly record

OPTIMIZING AND MODERNIZING OF THE PROSPECTING AND EXPLORATION FOR MINERAL RESOURCES

S. Shanov, V. Georgiev, R. Petrunov

Abstract

The economic interests of every company, performing prospecting and exploration for mineral resources require conformity with the contemporary market reality. Key element of that is the application of new technologies and methods, which lead to optimal results, while reducing the amount of some expensive and labor-consuming geological exploration works, without damaging the structure of the normative required information in the final documents for proving a commercial discovery (deposit). At the stages of prospecting and exploration this is achieved by: 1) Applying suitable to the specific geological situation highly accurate geophysical methods, which can reduce the amount of drilling works. The cost of unit geological information obtained by geophysical surveys is lower than that of the drilling works; 2) Laboratory investigations of the samples from the drilling and surface mapping in laboratories certified by international standards, using modern laboratory equipment guaranteeing minimum of errors at tests; 3) Calculating the resources and reserves using globally recognized methods of mining geostatistics. A similar structure of the prospecting-exploration works has proved its advantages in the good international geological exploration practice, since it gives the possibility to control the results at each exploration stage, with the aim of operational optimization of the exploration scheme. In administrative-management aspect this approach allows express verifications by competent independent experts on the basis of the geostatistical model of the deposit, directing additional studies and analyses only to the sectors of highest dispersion of the assessments of contents and layer thickness. Such a scheme of exploration, based on modern technological and software equipment, has been adopted by Consortium GeoComplex.

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