Resource characterisation

A sound knowledge of a mineral resource serves as a basis for effective extraction and utilisation of the ore body. In addition to knowing the geometry of the ore body and the commodity grade, information is also necessary on how the rock unit behaves during mining and mineral processing.

Aggregated information

In general, four types of data on an ore body are collected: geological, geophysical, rock mechanical and geometallurgical. In all these areas, novel analysis techniques are already available.

However, development of the techniques is necessary to make them widely used in the extraction of ores. There is also a potential for improvement of identifying and extracting critical metals as by-products.

Objective

By improving the tools for data collection about mineralisations, both in the mine and in drill holes, a larger part of the natural resource can be extracted. This has both economic and environmental benefits.