In-Mine Geophysics ? Cutting costs and finding ore

Abstract

After a number of years of development and implementation Inco has a vigorous mines geophysics program in place at our sulphide nickel operations in Canada. This involves geophysical support in exploration, delineation and production. The work in these areas is mutually reinforcing with a common set of physical properties being exploited at a wide variety of scales. The exploration work continues to generate new ore zones in an established but prolific camp and the production related work has resulted in ongoing savings and more efficient mining operations. We review a number of the main applications including blasthole surveying, televiewers, crosshole seismic tomography, pulsed neutron borehole probes, and BHEM. These programs and a number of other initiatives have been technically successful and are invarious stages of implementation. Overall our mines geophysics work has been a very successful with significant new in-mine discoveries and savings in production. We believe that this is still an underdeveloped area with many more opportunities for geophysical imaging of ore at multiple scales.