Selective disposal of mine wastes in an iron ore operation

摘要

Iron ores constitute a very important resource for the Brazilian economy. In the IronQuadrangle of Minas Gerais, a traditional iron ore mining district, the high-grade ironreserves are becoming exhausted and the immediate or future use of low-grade iron reservesis becoming anecessity. For future recovery of low-grade iron ores a methodology of rationaldumping of these marginal iron ores in temporary waste piles must be established consideringthe possibilities of future use of this mineral resource. To investigate this subject, the minieplanning methodology of block models was be applied to a typical iron ore property locatedin the Iron Quadrangle of the Brazilian State of Minas Gerais. The drill-hole informationand the topography map were provided by a Brazilian iron ore company. The exact locationof this prospect is not relevant for this type of study and the authors have moved it to thevicinity of the old iron ore cities mine in order to provide realistic geological informationfrom published data. The company provided a report that describes this property in detail,including topographic maps, drill-hole information, and the main economic parameters. Acommercial mining software package was applied to project the exploitation and the minewastes dumps using a methodology of selective disposal of the mine wastes, which isdescribed in details in this paper.