Reporting Bias as a Result of Core Loss at Las Cruces: A Case Study

Abstract

The most important copper minerals of the Las Cruces deposit in the pyrite belt of southern Spain are supergene enrichment zone sulphides of which chalcocite is the most significant. The deposit is overlain by 140 metres of barren marls and has been explored only by drilling. Drill cores have been split and assayed, but it became clear that there was a substantial problem related to core recovery which affects, in particular, some of the higher grade material. Much of the chalcocite is present in a friable and unconsolidated form and its progressive loss is evident visually in many core samples. The result of this loss of chalcocite is that there is a systematic downward bias on copper assays, leading directly to under-reporting of the copper resource. Studies of the assay data indicate the likely degree of under-reporting, but there is no simple way in which the reported resource estimates can validly be corrected.