The ore microscope is the basic instrument for the petrographic examination of the large and economically important group of minerals referred to collectively as "ore" or "opaque" minerals. Although neither term is strictly correct (inasmuch as pyrite is opaque but rarely, if ever, constitutes an economically viable ore and sphalerite and cassiterite are important ore minerals but are not opaque), both terms are frequently used synonymously.

This book is concerned with the study of ores as rocks—that is, with ore petrology. 
For much of the last three hundred years—and certainly for much of the twentieth century—most students of ore genesis have regarded the majority of metalliferous deposits as exotic entities, derived from extraneous sources and superimposed on geological situations to which they bore little or no genetic relationship. Almost the only exceptions have been those, such as ores of chromium and nickel, that have apparently formed as part of the igneous rocks that enclose them.

This is a monograph on ore deposits with its unique style, and it is obviously different from other books on this subject in that it separates and deals individually with the three sources for hydrothermal deposits, namely, ore source, water source and heat source. Classical magmatic hydrothermalists combine these three sources into one source, arguing that metallogenic elements and hydrothermal solutions are all products of magmatic crystallization and differentiation, and that heat source refers undoubtedly to magma. Such a theory dominated the field of metallogeny for more than half a century, and it is only in the last twenty years that the multi—source hydrothermal metallogeny has gradually emerged and made some progress; people now realize that magma is by no means the only source for hydrothermal deposits.

1. Beyond Naпve Optimisation 
2. Integrated Mine Evaluation — Implications for Mine Management
3. Using Real Options to Incorporate Price Risk into the Valuation of a Multi-Mineral Mine
4. Roadblocks to the Evaluation of Ore Reserves — The Simulation Overpass and Putting More Geology into Numerical Models of Deposits
5. Quantification of Risk Using Simulation of the Chain of Mining — Case Study at Escondida Copper, Chile
6. Integrated Strategy Optimisation for Complex Operations
7. Simulation of Orebody Geology with Multiple-Point Geostatistics — Application at Yandi Channel Iron Ore Deposit, WA and Implications for Resource Uncertainty