EDGE

Carry out robust resource estimates in an intuitive and highly visual environment. Leapfrog EDGE has the industry-standard tools you need most, arranged into a streamlined, but not prescriptive workflow.

• Fully integrate your resource estimation workflow with your geological model. Refine or add data at any stage and changes flow downstream from your geological model to the resource model and everywhere in between.
• Intuitive, flexible workflows and refined, uncluttered workspaces accelerate the learning curve, improve productivity and reduce training time and frustration.
• Visualise and interact with your data throughout the resource estimation process. Iterate and see the results in 3D to gain new insights.

Best Practices

Expertise is a Prerequisite

Geological expertise and understanding are essential in estimation, and Leapfrog Geo does not dispense with this essential element. An unskilled user can produce a model that faithfully adheres to unprocessed data but is geologically unreasonable and invalid. In the hands of an informed expert, on the other hand, Leapfrog Geo estimation tools will expedite the process of estimation and enhance the models used by the organisation.

The Geology is Fundamental

Geological modelling is the building block of an estimate, and the model needs to be geologically reasonable. A poor-quality geological model and a poor understanding of the mineralisation controls will prevent the development of a valid estimate using any process.

Analyse the Data First

Data will have errors in it that require correction. The quality of the data needs to be assessed and understood. It is important to understand how the data was collected and samples analysed. This data quality control work is essential.

Estimation specific data analysis is also required. It is important to understand the spatial relationships between the sample locations and samples and the area being studied. Tools to assist in this are described in Data Analysis Tools.

Domaining

Domains are defined for stationarity, enclosing a volume where the resource can be assumed to have an expected mean value anywhere within the boundary. The domain will typically be a collection of logical units with similar mineralisation characteristics. It is important to spend time upfront building geologically reasonable wireframes and mineralisation envelopes to condition the domain shapes for reasonable estimates. Defining domains to demonstrate good stationarity is important to producing good resource estimates. Domains that mix populations of mineralisation will likely result in over- or under-estimates of the metal that can be obtained from the ore.

Choose the domain to be estimated and the samples to use for estimation. Any volume in the project can be used when defining the domain, as can boundary objects and closed meshes.

The domain boundary can be defined as a hard boundary, excluding values from beyond the boundary from consideration during estimation. Or the boundary can be soft, including values up to a specified range beyond the boundary when processing the data. The selection should be made on the basis of the nature of the data, and this boundary analysis is made easier with the boundary plot that provides a visualisation of the data at and around the boundary threshold.

Variogram Hypothesis and Experimentation, Analysis

In the estimation workflow, the geologist makes a scientific hypothesis and assesses that hypothesis against the experimental data. In Leapfrog Geo, users make interpolants using the existing Leapfrog Geo approach, then check their estimated interpolant with traditional experimental variograms. Based on these experimental results, users can make adjustments to the range, nugget and other settings, to make the model consistent with the experimental results, adjusting the hypothesis.

Variography tools are described in Variogram Models.

Estimation Functions

Use traditional estimation methods: Nearest Neighbour, Inverse Distance, and Kriging. Additionally, use the RBF estimation method, and compare and contrast the results produced by the different estimation methods.

The estimation functions available in Leapfrog Geo are described in Estimators.

Block Modelling

Estimators can be visualised by evaluating them on block models, which is described in Visualising Sample Geometries and Estimators. Calculations and filters further enhance the visualisation options, adding computational analysis and processing of data capabilities to create new types of data to visualise. Use calculations and filters to derive a new column of data from other data, including estimator function results, or define a filter to select particular information out of the data. See Calculations and Filters on Block Models.

 

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