Testing for outliers in gold assay data; unweighted and weighted samples

摘要

My involvement in this workshop has had its origins in a piece of consulting work with a gold mining company, Company A, in 1989. I received a fax from a concerned metallurgist who was responsible for overseeing the contracts and processing for ore crushed at the Company A Mine. The metallurgist was assessing the mean recoverable gold content from ore that was being purchased from Company B. Payment was on the basis of the assessed mean recoverable gold content less 2/t treatment charge. The problem is to determine the "best estimate" of the mean recoverable gold content.