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Simulation of Synthetic Exploration and Geometallurgical Database of Porphyry Copper Deposits for Educational Purposes

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Abstract

The access to real geometallurgical data is very limited in practice, making it difficult for practitioners, researchers and students to test methods, models and reproduce results in the field of geometallurgy. The aim of this work is to propose a methodology to simulate geometallurgical data with geostatistical tools preserving the coherent relationship among primary attributes, such as grades and geological attributes, with mineralogy and some response attributes, for example, grindability, throughput, kinetic flotation performance and recovery. The methodology is based in three main components: (1) definition of spatial relationship between geometallurgical units, (2) cosimulation of regionalized variables with geometallurgical coherence and (3) simulation of georeferenced drill holes based on geometrical and operational constraints. The simulated geometallurgical drill holes generated look very realistic, and they are consistent with the input statistics, coherent in terms of geology and mineralogy and produce realistic processing metallurgical performance responses. These simulations can be used for several purposes, for example, benchmarking geometallurgical modeling methods and mine planning optimization solvers, or performing risk assessment under different blending schemes. Generated datasets are available in a public repository.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the financial support from project FONDEF ‘Caracterización y Modelamientos Geo-Minero-Metalúrgicos Predictivos: Camino a la Minería del Futuro’ (IT16M10021). The author acknowledges the support of the CONICYT PAI Concurso Nacional Tesis de Doctorado en el Sector Productivo, Convocatoria 2018 PAI7818D20001 and industrial support of IMDEX Limited—REFLEX INSTRUMENT South America SpA. We acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC), funding reference number RGPIN-2017-04200 and RGPAS-2017-507956.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Mauricio Garrido & Brian Townley

  2. School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

    Exequiel Sepúlveda

  3. School of Mining Engineering, Universidad de Talca, Talca, Chile

    Exequiel Sepúlveda

  4. The Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Julián Ortiz

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  1. Mauricio Garrido
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Correspondence to Mauricio Garrido.

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Garrido, M., Sepúlveda, E., Ortiz, J. et al. Simulation of Synthetic Exploration and Geometallurgical Database of Porphyry Copper Deposits for Educational Purposes. Nat Resour Res 29, 3527–3545 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-020-09692-6

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