Abstract

Since the Gol-Gohar iron ore mine (GGIOM), which is located in southeastern Iran, is currently one of the biggest iron mines in this region, increasing the accuracy of its mineral resources model has become a challenge for geologists, metallurgists and mining engineers. Given that an accurate classification of the mining blocks into ore or waste is highly significant in strategic mine planning, three approaches for simulating the iron grades were compared against the true grades obtained from production data. The comparison was done by calculating the ratio between the total number of blocks correctly classified as ore and waste and the total number of misclassified blocks, and it was conducted for each approach in three mined benches at the GGIOM. The results reveal that the grade simulation that ignores the geological boundaries and the grade simulation based on a deterministic geological interpretation are much less accurate than the hierarchical approach, which consists of simulating both the geological boundaries and the grades.