Mauritania, or as it is officially known, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is the eleventh largest sovereign state in Africa. It has extensive deposits of iron ore which account for 50% of total exports, with gold and copper mines beginning to develop in the interior parts of the region.
Kayleigh Cooper, MICROMINE Africa’s Training and Support Consultant for the Micromine solution, recently completed her second trip to Mauritania, and getting there was no easy feat. Kayleigh travelled to Paris, on to Nouakchott and then to Tasiast to take a direct chartered flight, in order to reach the Tasiast Gold Mine.
The Tasiast gold mine is an open-pit gold mine, owned and operated by Kinross Gold. The mine is located 300 kilometers north of the capital of Nouakchott in a wadi called Khatt Atui.
Kayleigh conducted Micromine training on Resource Estimation with the Tasiast Gold Mine team. The 5-day course covers the essentials, right through to block modelling and resource estimation.
Some of the key components covered include;
- Use classical statistics to describe assay data and to make key decisions such as choice cut-off value and interpolation technique
- Apply geological domains, flag and composite assay samples
- Produce a global reference estimate
- Learn the decision-making process for and create a block model
- Produce an appropriate search neighborhood
- Interpolate assay grades using inverse distance weighting
- Validate the resulting block model and interpolation
- Considerations for classification
- Resource reporting
An important part of the training for the Kinross team included the new features of Micromine 2018, which were released earlier this year.
Micromine 2018 allows users to capture, manage and interpret critical data, and is relevant to all stages of the mineral extraction process. Micromine 2018 has been developed with the user in mind and includes enhancements that increase the overall usability and performance of the software.
After a successful week of training, Kayleigh’s time in Mauritania came to an end, and her long journey back to the MICROMINE Africa office began. Fortunately, Kayleigh was able to explore Paris and its wonders, thanks to a 21 hour stop-over on her return flight.
