What is "geometallurgy"

Geometallurgy relates to the practice of combining geology or geostatistics with metallurgy, or, more specifically, extractive metallurgy, to create a spatially or geologically based predictive model for mineral processing plants. It is used in the hard rock mining industry for risk management and mitigation during mineral processing plant design. It is also used, to a lesser extent, for production planning in more variable ore deposits.

There are four important components or steps to developing a geometallurgical program,:

• the geologically informed selection of a number of ore samples
• laboratory-scale test work to determine the ore's response to mineral processing unit operations
• the distribution of these parameters throughout the orebody using an accepted geostatistical technique
• the application of a mining sequence plan and mineral processing models to generate a prediction of the process plant behavior