An adequate and dependable nonfuel mineral supply is fundamental to the economic well-being of our industrial society and to our national security. For 20 of the 32 mineral commodities listed in Table 1, the projected cumulative demand by the year 2000 exceeds our domestic reserves.1 For only 3 of these commodities does the United States currently produce as much as it consumes. Even on a worldwide basis, reserves of fully half of the commodities will probably be consumed before the year 2020.

It is necessary to define some fundamental terms that will provide indispensable background for the entire book. The first term to be explained deals with the title of the book: mineral resources. A mineral resource can be defined broadly as the concentration of material of economic interest in or on the Earth’s crust. In this book, it includes solid earth materials such as metals (i.e., copper, gold, iron),

Classification of mineral resource estimates is one of the most important responsibilities of the Competent Person. In recent years, classification decisions have been driven more by the detailed block-by-block attributes generated by the now widely appliedgeostatistical estimation methods, and less by a general geological overview.

Classification of Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves is an essential component of Resource/Reserve estimation, and is one of the most important responsibilities of the Competent Person. When carried out appropriately, it accurately conveys the Competent Person’s confidence in the estimates to those who need to make decisions which depend on the estimates, but who have less familiarity with the deposit than the Competent Person.

Mineral resource and ore reserve classification defines the risk associated with quoted resource tonnes and grades, allowing the interested party to make a judgement as to the ‘worth’ of the resource statement. The JORC Code and Guidelines (1992) are now well entrenched as the foundation upon which gold and base metal deposits in particular are publicly reported. There are three categories of resource, namely Measured, Indicated or Inferred reflecting decreasing levels of confidence. The ore reserve, that is the economically mineable part of the resource, is classified as Proven or Probable and can only be drawn from the Measured and Indicated resource categories. <...>

The Australasian Code for reporting of Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (JORC Code) was updated in 1999 (JORC 1999). This paper has been written as an update of Snowden (1996 and 1997) to recognise the large amount of experience with the use of the JORC Code gained by industry over the last four years, and describes the latest developments in technology and toolkits for risk classification.

Справочник «Страны Африки: минеральные ресурсы» содержит информационно-статистические материалы по 48 странам континентальной Африки и Республике Мадагаскар. Справочник содержит общие сведения о стране, ее населении, экономике, внешней экономической деятельности, состоянии минерально-сырьевой базы основных видов твердых полезных ископаемых и производстве основных видов товарной минерально-сырьевой продукции. Также приведена общая характеристика законодательства в области лицензирования недропользования.

The process of estimating a Mineral Resource can only take place after the estimator is convinced of the soundness of the fundamentals underlying the estimation process. Thus the database of sampling, density, and other quality data for both estimation and geological interpretation must have integrity and robustness (Chapter 2);

Risk in project evaluation involves the probability of estimates
failing. There are few more risk prone businesses than mining.
Burmeister (1989) reviewed 35 Australian gold operations which were initiated in the period 1984 to 1987 and found that two-thirds of them had not achieved targeted gold production in the first full year of operation. For those that did exceed target, the overriding reason was a higher than anticipated plant throughput. Only two out of the 35 achieved their projected recovered grade. Burmeister observed that the reasons for the shortfall in grade included excessive dilution, inappropriate estimation techniques, inadequate geological interpretation, unreliable assays and inadequate drilling.  <...>

Подготовлен комитетом ЮАР по минеральным ресурсам (SAMREC) под эгидой Южноафриканского института горной промышленности и металлургии. Вступил в силу в марте 2000 г.

1.1 В Кодексе ЮАР для составления отчетов о минеральных ресурсах и минеральных запасах («Кодексе SAMREC» или «Кодексе») представлены минимальные стандарты, рекомендации и руководящие принципы для составления публичных отчетов о результатах геологоразведочных работ, минеральных ресурсах и минеральных запасах  в ЮАР.