Interpreting Prospecting Ore Test Result

Asked by: Dave Day

What is a high grade nickel deposit?

Therefore, anything over 20 metres in thickness (significantly less thickness than other commodities) and 2% nickel grade or better would be reasonably considered high-grade.

What is grade of an ore?

The grade of ore refers to the concentration of the desired material it contains. The value of the metals or minerals a rock contains must be weighed against the cost of extraction to determine whether it is of sufficiently high grade to be worth mining, and is therefore considered an ore.

What techniques are used to find ore deposits?

The rock is drilled and blasted, then moved to the surface by truck, belt conveyor, or elevator. Once at the surface, the material is sent to a mill to separate the ore from the waste rock.



The primary methods used to extract minerals from the ground are:

• Underground mining.
• Surface (open pit) mining.
• Placer mining.

What concentration of zinc is needed to make an economic deposit?

A metal deposit is a body of rock in which one or more metals have been concentrated to the point of being economically viable for recovery.



20.1 Metal Deposits.

What is a good ore grade?

For underground mining, the World Gold Council defines between 8 and 10 grams per tonne as ‘high-quality’, and 1 to 4 grams per tonne as ‘low-quality’. There is no exact definition of what is considered as high or low grade.

What are the most valuable ore deposits?

The most valuable ore deposits contain metals crucial to industry and trade, like copper, gold, and iron. Copper ore is mined for a variety of industrial uses. Copper, an excellent conductor of electricity, is used as electrical wire. Copper is also used in construction.

What is a low grade ore?

Low grade ores, are those with a low concentration of metals, like shale and schist etc.

What is a high-grade ore?

A higher grade means that the ore has a higher density of gold. Gold ore density is measured by grams per tonne, or g/t. Higher quality mines have densities of 8 to 10 g/t while lower quality mines have densities of 1 to 4 g/t. Some of the world’s highest-grade mines have been in the U.S., Russia, and Peru.

What is high and low grade ore?

High-grade ore contains a large concentration of the desired mineral. It has less impurities. Low-grade ore has a smaller concentration. It has more impurities.

What are the four types of ore?

There are mainly four kinds of ores like Ores Oxides; Ores Carbonate; Sulphide Ores; Ores Halides.

What are the four methods of concentration of ore?

Ore concentration can be accomplished through a variety of methods, including hydraulic washing, magnetic separation, froth flotation, and leaching.

What factors influence the value of an ore deposit?

Among such factors are the shape of a deposit, its depth below the surface, its geographic remoteness, access to transportation, the political stability of the region, and market factors such as the price of the metal in world trade and the costs of borrowing the money needed to develop a mine.

What is considered high grade silver ore?

Defining what classifies as high grade varies for each mine. That said, for primary silver mines as a whole the average grade in Q1 2020 was 125.4 grams per tonne (g/t). “The maximum quarterly grade from a mine was 578.4 g/t and the minimum was 19.5 g/t.

What is the lowest grade of iron ore?

Low-grade iron ore, defined as containing between 20 and 47% iron, is thought to be the primary iron-bearing lithology from which most high-grade ore deposits formed, through different processes of enrichment.

What is an ore grade 8?

Answer: A rock from which a particular mineral can be profitably extracted is called an ore. The ores of metallic minerals are generally located in igneous and metamorphic rocks.

What are the grades of nickel?

Nickel Alloy Grades – Chemical Composition

What does high grade ore mean?

All precious metals are graded by the amount of metal within the ore. A higher grade means that the ore has a higher density of gold. Gold ore density is measured by grams per tonne, or g/t. Higher quality mines have densities of 8 to 10 g/t while lower quality mines have densities of 1 to 4 g/t.

What is a Tier 1 mineral deposit?

Tier 1 deposits are “Company making” mines. They are large, long life and low cost. Using long run commodity prices it generates >$300-600m pa of revenue (i.e. >200 kt pa Cu or >800 kt pa Zn+Pb or >5kt pa of U3O8 or >250 koz pa Au) for >20 years and is in the bottom quartile of the cost curve.

Where are major deposits of nickel located?

Rich deposits are found in Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Russia and Canada, which together account for more than 50% of the global nickel resources. Although there has been a significant increase in nickel mining over the past three decades, known nickel reserves and resources have also steadily grown.

Who owns the most nickel in the world?

Leading companies based on nickel production worldwide 2020



Nornickel has long been the world’s largest nickel producer. Brazil’s Vale was the second-largest nickel producer in 2020, with a production volume of 167,600 metric tons.

Who is the biggest nickel miner in the world?

Nornickel

Nickel and palladium miner and smelter Nornickel leads the list with 236 kt of nickel produced in 2020, the majority coming from its Norilsk division of flagship assets in Russia.