OPTIMIZING AND MODERNIZING OF THE PROSPECTING AND EXPLORATION FOR MINERAL RESOURCES

3rd International Scientific Conference - SGEM2003, www.sgem.org, SGEM2003 Conference Proceedings/ ISBN: 954-918181-2, June 9-13, 2003, 177- 184pp

ABSTRACT
/Full article available only in Bulgarian language/

The economic interests of every company, performing prospecting and
exploration for mineral resources require conformity with the contemporary
market reality. Key element of that is the application of new technologies and
methods, which lead to optimal results, while reducing the amount of some
expensive and labor-consuming geological exploration works, without damaging
the structure of the normative required information in the final documents for
proving a commercial discovery (deposit). At the stages of prospecting and
exploration this is achieved by: 1) Applying suitable to the specific geological
situation highly accurate geophysical methods, which can reduce the amount of
drilling works. The cost of unit geological information obtained by geophysical
surveys is lower than that of the drilling works; 2) Laboratory investigations of the
samples from the drilling and surface mapping in laboratories certified by
international standards, using modern laboratory equipment guaranteeing
minimum of errors at tests; 3) Calculating the resources and reserves using
globally recognized methods of mining geostatistics.
A similar structure of the prospecting-exploration works has proved its
advantages in the good international geological exploration practice, since it gives
the possibility to control the results at each exploration stage, with the aim of
operational optimization of the exploration scheme. In administrative-management
aspect this approach allows express verifications by competent independent
experts on the basis of the geostatistical model of the deposit, directing additional
studies and analyses only to the sectors of highest dispersion of the assessments of
contents and layer thickness. Such a scheme of exploration, based on modern
technological and software equipment, has been adopted by Consortium
GeoComplex.