Two Courses - 5 days each

MINP 401 – Drillholes to Block Model using GEOVIA Surpac™

MINP 402 – Drillholes to Block Model using GEOVIA GEMS™

Who Should Attend

The Resource and Block Modeling course is a comprehensive three-day course designed for mining and resource industry professionals including mine planners, mining engineers, geoscientists, geologists, and managers from exploration to operations. It is ideally suited to those from industry who wish to gain a more in depth and hands-on knowledge of modern resource modeling software tools and theory.

Course Description

Outcomes of the course include:

By the end of this course, you should be able to:
    • Perform statistical analysis
    • Understand variogram concepts
    • Calculate experimental variograms and model variograms
    • Interpret variogram maps
    • Establish search ellipsoids
    • Create block model projects
    • Update block attributes for rock type and density
    • Understand kriging theory
    • Use inverse distance and kriging to estimate grade attributes
    • Use indicator kriging for numerical rock type modeling
    • Create partial block models
    • Cross validate the estimated block model values
    • Import and export block models
    • Classify resources based on NI 43-101 guidelines
    • Report volumes and tonnages using the block model with solids and/or surfaces.   

Module 1: Resources and Reserves

• Review of Resources and Reserves - CIM Definitions
• National Instrument 43-101 

Modeule 2: Data and Drillholes

• Drillhole Databases
• Workspace and Database concepts
• Header, Survey, Assay, Lithology,
• From–To, Distance, and Point Databases
• Workspace concepts
• Data Types
• Creating workspaces for drillholes
• Editing data
• Validating the drillhole data
• Defining colour profiles and drillhole display profiles
• Opening drillhole data into the graphical area

Module 3: Sections, Plan Views, and Plotting

•  Sections and Plan Views
• Profiles and Profile Groups
• Cross and Longitudinal Sections, Plan Views
• Creating sections and plan views
• Viewing data on sections and plan views
• Creating inclined and diagonal sections
• Plotting Data
• Creating drillhole plots from displayed data
• Creating symbol plots from displayed data
• Creating a grid and contour plot
• Create a structure plot
• Batch plotting
• Defining Plotstyles
• Creating extra viewports
• Creating title blocks and graphical images
• Saving images into catalogues
• Defining grid transformations

Module 4: Basic Statistics and Data Manipulation

Module 5: Compositing

• Compositing methods
    • By plan view
    • By equal length
    • By length within intervals from another table
    • By merging intervals from two tables
    • By a single cut-off value.
    • By multiple cut-off values
    • By grouped similar values
    • By Optimal 
• Modifying the workspace to accommodate composite results
• Calculating the composite
• Performing a thickness calculation
• Displaying drillholes with the calculated composites
• Composite by rock code for geology polylines
• Composite by grade cut off for grade
• Basic Statistics on Composites
• Determine optimum sample length for compositing
• Composite data to equal length intervals inside geological domains
• Extract composites into a point area workspace and split into domains
• Carry out and compare basic statistics on different geological domains

Module 6 – Geology - Surface and Solid Modeling

• Surface Modeling
    • Working with polyline data
    • Creating a polyline workspace
    • Importing polylines from DXF or ASCII files into a polyline workspace
    • Defining the polyline display profile
    • Opening polylines into the graphical area
• Selecting the drillhole intersects for the surface
• Preparing the surface from active data
• Preparing the surface using Laplace gridding
• Gridding and Contouring Surfaces
• Create and validate surfaces (topography, weathering, pits, faults, etc.)
• Creating surfaces with two sets of lines
• Creating two sets of lines
• Optimising surfaces
• Creating Surfaces using Spherical Gridding
• Defining a spherical grid profile
• Solid Modeling
    • What are the basic polyline types and uses
    • Digitizing new polylines
    • Making polyline modifications
    • Drawing close polylines on sections
    • Defining 3D rings on section or plan
    • Using tie lines to connect 3D rings
    • Basics rules for the creations of rings and tie lines
    • Grooming the 3D rings
    • Creating the solid from rings and tie lines
    • Plotting the solid on section
    • Handling split rings
    • Handling dog ears
    • Drawing tie lines
    • Updating the drillhole workspace with the solid intersections
    • Create geological domains using basic solid modelling techniques
    • Quick tonnes/grade calculations for geological domains
    • Solid Boolean Operations
    • Solid intersection with clipping boundaries, surfaces and solids
    • Contouring solids

Module 7: Basic Statistics

• Understanding the Geological Domains
    o The Impact of Domains on Estimated Values
• Basic Statistics
    o Descriptive statistics
    o Histograms
    o Cumulative Probability Plots
    o Probability Plots
    o Bimodal Distributions
• Outliers
    o Outliers and top cuts o Methods for determining a top cut value
    o Histograms
    o Confidence interval
    o Percentile
    o Applying a top cut in GEMS
• Anisotropy
    o Viewing a Search Ellipse Sphere
    o Examples of Search Ellipse Parameters

Module 8 – Variograms

• Variogram Concepts
        o What is a variogram?
        o Variogram Parameters
        o Linear (Downhole) variography
        o Omnidirectional and Directional Variography
        o Effect of nugget, range and discretisation
        o Creating and Viewing Experimental Variograms
        o Changing the Variogram Type
        o Summary: Steps to Create an Experimental Variogram
 • Modeling a Variogram
       o Opening and Modeling an Experimental Variogram
       o Viewing Different Types of Variogram Models
       o Summary: Steps to Model an Experimental Variogram
       o Variogram modelling tips
 • Variogram Maps
      o Calculating and Modeling the Primary and Secondary Variogram Map
      o Saving Variography Parameters to Profiles
 • Other Geostatistical Considerations

Module 9 – Block Modeling

• Block Model Setup
• Define block model geometry and set up workspace
• Create additional attributes, folders and model mappings if required
• Initialise/check background values
• Create cell display profiles
• Block Model Interpolation
• Update rock type and density
• Display blocks
• Grade interpolation using Inverse Distance Squared
• Multi Folder Block Models
• Ordinary Kriging (trace blocks, search ellipse, variogram and kriging profiles)
• Block model manipulations
• Visual validation
• Other validation methods
• Partial block models
•Other Block Model Considerations