Mnge 460 Senior Design

• Class will be centered around doing a group
Pre-Feasibility Assessment of a Hypothetical
Ore Deposit
– There will be one deposit this year
– It will be assigned
– You will work as a group with subteams and individual assignments
– You will heavily use computer aides – particularly
MineSight

• First Task will be to select a team leader
– They will directly report and work with me
– The will also issue assignments within the group and report those assignments to me
– If someone tries to take a free ride they will be the lead in turning you in.
– Teams may discuss what they want to do, but if consensus is not reached team leader can make executive decision.

• The workload is not proportional to the credit hours
– My example 15 credits – 3 of Senior Design
– The time commitment 50% to Senior Design, 50% to everything else - ie about 4 times the logical level
– Consolation prize
• We don’t necessarily have class everyday
• Unconsolation we have 4 classes for 3 credits

• People Depend on you to complete your portion of the work
– Your failings can screw other people (most of whom will not be happy about it)
– Two negative side effects
• You will feel some peer pressure
• While grading is outlined and explained you will almost certainly feel some unfairness because not everything is in your control
• Some work will have to be graded by team
• I will also break down points by individual

• Fixed % scale with no curve
– 90% A
– 80% B
– 70% C
– 60% D
– <60% - the opportunity to repeat the class

• Weekly oral reports 25%
• Weekly written reports 25%
• Work Performance Assessment 15%
• Final Oral Report 15%
• Final Written Report 20%

• Once a week the team will do a powerpoint based oral presentation
– This means public speaking
– This means doing powerpoints
– This means doing the work that you will report on
• Your team leader will order/consult with you on what the over-all content will be
– Individuals will be appointed to give subparts of the presentation based on their work
• You’ll turn in a copy of your PP after presenting

• New Format this Year
– A work journal with a summary report at the end
– Each week there will be at least 3 written reports.
• You will explain what you did
• You will explain how it fits in to the over-all objective
• You will identify what you did to get information and where you got it
• You will indicate how you analyzed that data
• You will explain what your conclusions and resulting parameters were
• You will have appendices of the data you found or compilations of MineSight reports
– Each with have a heading explanation of what it is and how it was part of the work done.

• Written reports will be turned in at the end of the presentation along with copies of the powerpoint show.

• Teacher’s arbitrary capricious tool for screwing you if you don’t do you work well by the time it is due.
– If you convincingly show that you really did the work that was assigned to you during a given week its easy points
– If you sit back till the last minute and then wait for the gods to come do your work – big mean teacher will clobber you with this.
– (I have allowed student ratings of each other to be a part of this in the past)

It is in granitic type Mesozoic Igneous Rock

The Deposit is along the Yukon River west of Fairbanks Alaska near the busteling
Metropolis of Ruby

There are Roads to Fairbanks
(too bad about your deposit)
Alaska has a backwoods road network between major cities, but other areas may have
Only local roads that end and never connect anything.

Ruby sits on
The banks of
The Yukon
River at 250 ft
The deposit is in rolling mountains amid flat low-lands. Lowlands are around 300 ft
Mountains more like 1000 ft or so.

Complete with a rutted gravel
Runway 4000 ft long and 100
Ft wide.
It even has its own windsock!
Terminal Facilities give new
Meaning to terminal

Alaska’s Advanced Road
System.
Road to Manley Hot Springs

The native fishing villages of Ruby and Tanana are in the area – Ruby is a checkpoint on
The northern route of the Idicarod Trail (anyone for hauling concentrates by dog sled?)
Roads do go to Manley Hot Springs.

An old gold mining boom town.
Native Americans moved in when
The boom population left
A big 170 people today.
Ruby Alaska
Access is only by air, with river, dogsled and
Backpacking by season.
83% Native American 14% White rest mixed race – considered a fishing village

Ruby has Its Own Electric System
(Ruby Electric)
Most communities have
Non-interconnected
Diesel generators
In Ruby its Ruby Electric

Here is the whole phone book

The Alaskan Railroad
Goes to Fairbanks

Tanana Alaska
Population 251

Precipitation is about 13 inches per year.

It is in Mesozoic volcanics

The area has thin to moderate permafrost under it.

Climate is Similar to Fairbanks
(you might even make 73 degrees in July – of course -17 is the average
Low in January)

You Might Be Comfortable 23% of the
Time in June and July

• Your Highest Grade Metal is Copper
– Your ore also contains some Gold and some zinc
• Your Deposit has 6 major mineral zones
– An oxide zone on top (6)
– An oxide to secondary sulfide zone (5)
– A secondary Sulfide zone (4)
– A secondary to primary transition (3)
– Two primary sulfide zones (1 and 2)
– (numbers are block model codes)

• Your copper minerals
– 30% of copper in Azurite
– 15% in Cuprite
– 55% in Chrysacola
• Gold is native a free milling coming out of limonite and geothite
• 76% of your silver is free milling metallic
• 12% of your silver is an impurity in the free milling gold
• 12% is substituted in Cu oxides

• Copper is in
– 55% Chalcocite
– 40% Covelite
– 5% Chalcopyrite
– Ag is 50% Acanthite, 25% Argentite, 12.5% substituted in Cu minerals and 12.5% mixed with gold
• Gold is 50% free milling and 50% encapsulated in pyrite

– Zones 1 and 2
• Cu minerals 70% Chalcopyrite 30% Bornite
• Ag is 37.5% in Argentite, 37.5% in Acanthite, 12.5% substituted in copper minerals, and 12.5% in mixture with the metallic gold
– Zone 2 Gold is metallic, but 50% is encapsulated in pyrite (ie only 50% is free milling
– Zone 1 Gold is metallic and 50% encapsulated in pyrite but there is enough “preg robbing carbon” to take up all the gold released by leaching 5 times over.

• Zone 5 is 50% like zone 6 oxide and 50% like zone 4 secondary enrichment
• Zone 3 is 50% like zone 2 primary sulfide and
50% like 4 secondary enrichment.

• The pit will normally sustain an over-all slope of 55 degrees
• Toe to Crest slopes of 75 degrees are sustainable
• A fracture pattern – a major structure strikes
North 30 degrees East
– The dip is 60 degrees to the north-west
– The angle of internal friction on the fracture planes is 20 degrees

Your report will be a documented journal of how you reached conclusions and decisions
Each Week you will submit an electronic report journal and do an oral presentation
Reports of Week 1
Metal Prices, Climate and Workforce, Infrastructure and processing facilities

• I have a USGS report that will give historic prices and discuss product uses and historical price drivers
• Just one problem – it gives historic prices
– How does one adjust for inflation?
– Use the Consumer Price Index
– (I also have an electronic file for that)

• In 1913 copper was 15.5 cents per lb
• The consumer price index was 9.9
• Today the CPI is 232.96
• Adjust
– 15.5 * 232.96/ 9.9 = 364.74
– Or $3.65 cents per lb

• One way to look at the data is with MineSight
Data Analyst

Data Analyst is Used to Explore and Do
Graphs on Things Like Block Models

Suppose I am looking at typical values for my primary sulfide ore
Copper 0.325%
Silver 0.04 oz/ton
Gold 0.04 oz/ton
Pyrite 1%
Suppose I have determined copper is $3.25/lb, Ag $25/oz, Gold $1,200/oz
One Tonne of ore 2205 lbs (metric tonnes)
0.325% * 2205 lbs = about 7 lbs Cu or a little less $23/ton
Gold 0.04 oz * 1200 = $48/ton - about $24/ton in free mill and $24/ton pyrite
Silver 0.04 oz * 25 = $1/ton – 75 cents in floatable sulfides 12.5 cents each in
Gold and Cu substitute

Gold is most valuable at $24/ton free milling gold will likely be a primary
Processing target
I have $24/ton in pyrite encapsulation and $23/ton in copper sulfides
I’m thinking 2 stage floatation here
Silver at 75 cents – I’ll have to see whether a 3 rd flotation stage is justified
The rest will be substituted in other products – I’ll deal with it in smelter
Credits.