Explorative Sampling of Natural Mineral Resource Deposits

摘要

Methods and systems for improving mineral resource exploration and resource classification efficiency are provided herein. The generation and iterative, dynamic improvement of drill plans for sampling a target volume using drill holes is described. Methods and systems for the development and optimization of drill plans are able to accommodate a wide variety of constraints and targets, providing drill plans which aim to minimize the amount of explorative drilling while substantially converting unclassified sub-volumes, and in particular high-desirability sub-volumes, of the target volume to a specified or desired level while attempting to maximize targeted resource conversion efficiency. Resulting drill plans may provide a proposed collection of drill holes, defined in 3D space, penetrating the target volume which sufficiently sample a target volume while remaining within one or more specified constraints.