PrintModule 3 Summary
The goal of the exploration stage is to define the resource and estimate the reserve. We’ve learned the basic concepts of resource estimation, and we’ve learned how to estimate a resource using the polygon method. Once we have the resource estimate, we can move on to the reserve estimate.
There are two metrics that can be used to start the determination of how much of the resource is mineable with today’s technologies and practices: cutoff grade and stripping ratio. The former can be used for either surface or underground mining, whereas the latter is applicable only to surface mining. We learned how to calculate both of these metrics in this lesson. In many cases, the reserve will be less than the resource after we subtract off the part of the resource that cannot be economically mined based on the cutoff grade or the stripping ratio.
It may turn out that there are other constraints and problems with mining the resource, and if so, we will have to subtract out those parts that can’t be mined for technical or other reasons. These constraints and problems will become clear as we progress through the remainder of this course, and in the next Module, we’ll identify these “other” factors that will affect the reserve estimate and also consider the merits of the overall project.