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POLLARD, D., PITARD, F. and MINNITT, R. Misconceptions, rumour, and hearsay about sampling. Fourth World Conference on Sampling & Blending,
The Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, 2009.

Misconceptions, rumour, and hearsay about sampling

D. POLLARD*, F. PITARD† and R. MINNITT ‡
*Salamander Consulting Pty Ltd, Australia
†FrancisPitard Sampling Consultants, USA
‡University of the Witwatersrand, RSA

The minerals industry regards sampling as an important part of its operations, but often does not
recognize the differences between good and bad sampling practice. The reasons are many: poor
understanding of sampling theory and how it should be applied, a corporate cost saving culture
especially concerning technical issues which are not well understood by executive management
and boards, and a failure in the education of industry professionals to develop an understanding of
the fundamentals and economic importance of good sampling practice.
The authors have experience in industry, education, training and professional development, at
undergraduate, postgraduate and professional development levels, and have been working to
improve the understanding of students and practising professionals in the industry for many years.
The target groups are practising and future geologists, mining and metallurgical engineers,
laboratory managers, quality control professionals, middle and executive managers, and
accounting and financial managers. Operators, technicians and supervisors have formed another
target group.
The results of these educational efforts have been rewarding. The paper will discuss the
strategies used for the different target groups, some evidence of good and bad practices discovered
in the industry, and feedback from the participants. Recommendations for education programmes
are made based on the experiences. While the paper is based on our experiences in the minerals
industry, the context is applicable to other industries.

Introduction Australian universities, and then for a decade he was

This paper is not the outcome of a research project; it does
not present a set of data developed from surveys and
experiments; rather it is an anecdotal account of the
experiences of the authors over many years. We present it
in the hope that it will provide some insights into the
reasons why industry in general and the minerals industry
in particular do not take correct sampling as seriously as
they should. It describes some attempts by the authors to
provide education and training opportunities to key sectors
in the minerals industry
The experience of the authors is relevant to the paper:
Francis Pitard is an international sampling consultant and
author of books and papers about sampling, including
Pierre Gy’s Sampling Theory and Sampling Practice1. He
consults and presents short courses on sampling in a
number of countries including USA, Canada, Australia,
Chile and South Africa. Most of these courses are presented
in house to companies.
Dick Minnitt is JCI Professor of Mining Resources and
Reserves in the department of Mining Engineering at the
University of The Witwatersrand. His degrees are in
geology and chemistry, and mineral economics. He has
worked as a geologist, mine geologist and academic. He is
an active consultant and has published over 40 papers in the
past 10 years, many of which have sampling as a minor or
major focus. He is in the process of publishing a textbook
on sampling which should help teachers and students to
better understand the topic.
David Pollard is a metallurgist, with experience in the
metallurgical and coal industries before becoming an
educator. He taught metallurgy for twenty years in two
responsible for the Continuing Education Department of the
Australian Mineral Foundation. In this role he worked with
minerals industry managers to develop and deliver a
structured programme of short courses, seminars and field
courses, delivered by international experts, for industry
professionals ranging from recent graduates to technical
mangers. He represents Francis Pitard in Australasia and
has worked with Pitard for about 20 years.
Sampling in the minerals industry
Sampling in the minerals industry is often performed badly.
The reasons are diverse: the sampling equipment is not
properly designed to provide representative samples or it is
not situated at the optimum location, the equipment is not
properly maintained, the operators and maintenance
personnel are not correctly trained in its use, the
professional staff do not have a sufficient understanding of
sampling theory and application, and management regards
sampling as an expendable budget item in both plant design
and operations. As long as tonnes and grade meet
production targets, sampling is too often low on the priority
list. Furthermore, there is no communication between the
sampling expert, the manufacturers of sampling equipment
and the engineering contractor during the critically
important plant design phase. Communication always
comes too late, after the operation is commissioned.
What is too often not appreciated is that good sampling
and application of the information can deliver better grade
control, optimum plant design, improved process control,
improved concentrate grade and reduced losses to tailings,
lower costs and improved profit.

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Many companies take huge numbers of samples for no
good purpose. Two reasons are suggested for this:
• The sampling protocols were established by technically
competent persons at some point in the history of the
operation, but those staff have moved on and are no
longer custodians of the results and no one has
reviewed the current suitability of the procedures, or
• The installed sampling facilities and protocols do not
honour the principles of the theory of sampling. The
sampling continues because there is no one who has
sufficient insight into the problem, or who is willing to
seek outside expertise.
Executive management and company boards are
commonly dominated by nontechnical accountants,
economists and lawyers. The critical stages of resource
estimation and metallurgical test work are often seen as
non-critical and expensive steps in the process, and subject
to cost cutting. The metallurgical design world has many
stories of cost cutting by restricting drilling programmes,
curtailing metallurgical test work and removing sampling
stations from process plant designs to save costs, and
installing cheap non-probabilistic sampling systems. These
actions are invariably followed by difficulties in
commissioning, long ramp-up times to reach nameplate
capacity, plant redesigns and retrofitting, and in extreme
cases abandonment of the project. Documentation of these
cases is rarely available, the mining company and the
engineering company often end up in court, and the
metallurgists who could see it all coming are usually
ignored again when the next project comes along.
It is critically important for metallurgical processing that
the mineralogical characteristics of the orebody are
understood, i.e. what minerals are present, how they are
associated, and how they will behave or interact during
processing to affect concentrate grade and recovery. Many
mineral processing plants have been designed and built only
to discover that the ore is more difficult to grind than
predicted, or the plant cannot cope with impurities which
interfere with the process, or cannot recover or remove
elements which are in refractory associations. The lessons
learnt from these mistakes cannot be applied if the sampling
and test work used as the basis for the design of the next
plant is deficient.
At the end of the sequence of designing, building and
operating a new metallurgical plant, if a metallurgist is
asked ‘what would you do differently?’ the answer will
include some or all of ‘sample more, understand the
mineralogy better, do more testwork’.
Brooks2 describes a range of errors, from a variety of
projects, in drilling and geological modelling, sampling
during processing, and laboratory analysis, all attributable
to sampling errors. The examples quoted variously led to
gross misrepresentation of reserves.
The authors have experience to demonstrate that the key
to appreciation of the benefits of good sampling is
education and training of operators, professional staff and
(especially) management.
Challenges at university
The depth and seriousness of teaching sampling theory and
application in university geology, mining and metallurgy
departments is often very dependent on the particular
interests and knowledge of the lecturers in the subjects
where sampling is relevant. Ideally the basic theory of
sampling should be covered in lectures, and application
should be integrated into laboratory work. The major
disciplines for the minerals industry are considered.
Geology courses
Sampling is important for geologists, geochemists and other
178 FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON SAMPLING & BLENDING
geoscientists. Exploration geologists and geochemists take
samples for analysis and evaluation, and use various exotic
instruments in the field to provide mineral analysis, as well
as sampling for laboratory analyses. Many of the samples
gathered are best described as grab samples, and in practice
there is a strong likelihood that selection will occur to take
‘the best bits’ for analysis. In 1924 the prospectus for the
Mount Isa South Company referred to ‘the 60% lead that
had been gouged in a lease adjacent to the Mount Isa South
lease’. Blainey3 (1960) comments ‘It would have been ...
interesting, if not wise, to note that the 60% was hand
picked’. Be aware of similar problems today.
It should be noted that most geological samples are ‘fit
for purpose’ in that they are collected specifically as hand
specimens of rock types, to be made into thin sections or
polished sections for petrological and microscopic
examination. In most cases, and depending on the purpose
of the exercise, geological hand specimens for thin section
examination are collected from rock outcrops where
mineral assemblages are least weathered and best
represented.
Geologists may receive some training about sampling
with an exploration focus, in geochemistry subjects. Most
of the geologists contacted have said that they received no
lectures on sampling or sampling theory, but were given
some guidance and ‘rules of thumb’ during field work.
Metallurgy courses
The depth of understanding about sampling in metallurgy
courses is dependent on the course and the staff teaching it.
Often the subject of sampling is treated in the mineral
processing laboratory, where ‘rules of thumb’ are used to
determine sample size and simple methods of sample
splitting are used, often without an understanding of their
limitations (riffles, rubber mats). Metallurgy is unusual in
having feed materials that are heterogeneous, as feed may
consist of discrete particles comprising single or multiple
minerals, and also particles containing solid solutions of
varying composition. In most other processing of materials
(petroleum, pharmaceutical, food, etc.) the feed is more
uniform and closer to homogeneous. It is normal for
metallurgical feed to vary widely in composition and
properties, even from closely associated parts of the same
mine. An understanding of the mineralogy of an orebody is
vital to designing an efficient processing circuit, and
operating it.
Some metallurgy courses treat mineralogy as an
important topic. In some courses mineralogy is taught to
metallurgy students by the geology staff, which can bring
some cross-disciplinary appreciation to the subject. If,
however, the course does not provide a basic understanding
of sampling theory and how it should be applied, graduates
will continue to work in ignorance. Metallurgical engineers
are likely to study some statistics in their undergraduate
syllabus, and thus have a better chance of appreciation of
the issues involved in sampling, than those taking science
degrees in geoscience or metallurgy.
Metallurgical process plants are often run by chemical,
process or other engineers. Sampling theory is not a feature
of their education, and although their courses will have
included some statistics they are unlikely to have had any
exposure to sampling heterogeneous materials.
Metallurgy courses do not often include mineral
economics, although some have begun to do so. The
relatively new (or reinvented) field of geometallurgy has
great potential to address problems in orebody character-
ization, grade control, processing plant operation,
economics and communication. Geometallurgy may
address the requirement for correct sampling in a more
palatable way to management.
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Mining courses
Mining engineers very often have less understanding of the
theory of sampling than geologists and metallurgists. This
can be a problem as mining engineers are more likely to
end up as mine managers, site managers and senior
managers and become responsible for site-wide or
company-wide operations, including mine geology and the
process plant operations. Mining engineers are more likely
to receive an introduction to sampling if their university
experience includes a mineral processing subject with
laboratory sessions.
Mining engineering courses do contain introductions to
mineral economics and mine management, subjects notably
missing from most geoscience and metallurgy courses. As
mining engineers are more likely to move into site and
corporate management than geoscientists and metallurgists,
a greater appreciation of the importance of correct sampling
by mining engineers would benefit the investment and
operational decisions of the company.
MBA courses and management in the minerals industry
Good sampling practices are critically important for the
economics and management of mining operations. MBA
graduates in the minerals industry need to appreciate the
benefits of good sampling at each stage of the supply chain
so that sampling is not seen as an optional item on the
budget.
Challenges in the industry
Exploration
Most geologists who enter the minerals industry have
graduated from a course which is designed to produce
exploration geologists. The curricula of most of these
courses omit any drill core logging and any mineral
economics including financial evaluation. Reference to
sampling is usually a practical procedural guide, with little
or no reference to the theory.
Young geologists usually receive some practical guidance
in sampling once they start work in the field, along with
mapping, survival skills and many other things. They are
given some guidelines and rules of thumb from more
experienced geologists who have themselves received
similar advice when they began field work. If they are
fortunate, they will be sent to a short course on sampling. A
very small number read books on sampling and develop
their understanding of the subject. The Field Geologists
Manual 4 and the companion volume Field Guide for
Geoscientists and Technicians5 contain excellent chapters
on sampling. These and similar references are readily
available to most exploration geologists.
When a deposit is identified as worthy of further
investigation and a drilling programme is initiated, the
business of obtaining samples from reverse circulation drill
cuttings appears fairly simple. It is only recently that some
sampling devices attached to drills have been developed to
avoid major sampling errors. Problems with sampling are
increased where poor sampling equipment is combined
with geologists and technicians who do not have good
training in sampling.
Mining
The mine geologist obtains samples for grade control from
rock faces and blast hole drilling, and in some cases from
RC drilling. Blast hole sampling is notoriously unreliable,
and Pitard has recommended reverse circulation drilling
should be used to obtain samples for grade control. Some
companies have adopted this, in spite of the greater expense
and the need to plan it to avoid disruption to the mining
MISCONCEPTIONS, RUMOUR, AND HEARSAY ABOUT SAMPLING
schedule. However, even when such practices have been
introduced, the paucity of basic knowledge about the theory
of sampling means that the benefits of the technology can
be lost or diluted. Mining engineers are usually not very
interested in sampling and its problems; they want tonnes.
The mine geologist is in the front line for grade control,
and if the mill is to know what ore it will be treating
tomorrow or next month, it is the mine geologist who can
tell them. Most mine geologists start as exploration
geologists, and there are few courses in mine geology. The
requirements of sampling for grade control are learnt on the
job rather than studied.
Curtin University, through the WA School of Mines in
Kalgoorlie, has the only geology school in Australia which
offers a course in mine geology. In South Africa a degree in
Mining Geology was offered from the early 1960s, but it
became dormant in the mid-1990s due to low student
enrolments.
Process plant design
Bulk sampling for testwork is commonly organized by
geologists. There are many examples where limited test
work has been performed on a ‘bulk sample’ which was not
representative of the orebody, and where adequate
mineralogical characterization was not carried out. The
process plant design engineers are presented with totally
inadequate data about the ore to be treated, and the plants
when built will have problems during commissioning and
difficulty in reaching nameplate capacity. Such cases are
very often the subject of court action and details of the
problems are not made public. The shareholders lose value,
the operators of the plant lose sleep, the customers lose
supply, the engineers lose credibility, and the geologists
continue blithely on, unaware that the sampling practices
they prescribed were the primary cause of the problem.
We have talked with many metallurgical engineers over
the years, and all too often the metallurgists have to take
what they get from the geologists. Drill samples are sent to
a laboratory for analysis and the analyses specified by the
geologists are performed without any metallurgical input to
investigate elements or minerals which might affect
processing. Likewise, bulk samples can be tested with no
metallurgical input to the decision making.
Geometallurgy
An increasing number of companies address the issues of
sampling to delineate an orebody, and bulk sampling to
provide basic data for process plant design, more seriously.
Geometallurgy has emerged as the new description of the
process of studying the mineralogy of the orebody and
integrating the mine plan and the processing with the ore
characteristics. It is used by a small but increasing number
of both mining and engineering companies, and has been
introduced as a field of study at the Colorado School of
Mines. An AMIRA 7 collaborative research project in
Australia has nodes at the University of Tasmania and the
Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre.
Consultant groups provide specialist statistical and
geostatistical services to the industry which include
resource estimation, orebody modelling, grade control,
auditing and review. Companies which are not large enough
to have their own expertise in house can receive quality
professional services from such consultants. Codes for
reporting mineral resources and ore reserves have been
implemented in many countries and have done much to
improve the standard of reporting. However, when it comes
to the detail of adequate sampling for mine design, process
plant design and plant operation and environmental
monitoring, there is room for improvement.
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Pathways to understanding
University
To present correct information about sampling to
undergraduate and postgraduate students, faculty staff must
appreciate the importance of the topic, and have the
knowledge and resources to include it in the curriculum.
There is a need for a correct but compressed approach to
teach sampling in universities. A number of textbooks have
been written, but none has gained widespread acceptance to
date.
In South Africa the teaching of mine sampling theory at a
tertiary level in South Africa is done through the technical
colleges, the Chamber of Mines, and the mining companies
themselves, as part of a national qualification issued by the
Department of Minerals and Energy (DME), known as the
Mine Surveyors Certificate of Competency8.
‘Sampling’ in this case refers specifically to the
extraction and collection of so-called channel samples
along the reef face in a mining stope9. Although much has
been written about the method and means of collecting
channel samples, the source book for most government
related qualifications on sampling, is a volume edited by
Clare Storrar10 on mine valuation. Sampling therefore is an
extremely important subject, taught at many levels in
different institutions in the South African mining industry.
However, it tends to have a rather narrow focus on face
sampling of gold bearing reefs11.
At the undergraduate level there is little or no teaching of
the theory of sampling in most South African universities.
Where it is taught, the subject is usually treated as an add-
on and has to be accommodated in a curriculum that is
already full. It is usually pushed in as an introductory
section alongside the subject of technical evaluation of
mineral deposits. Students faced with a new topic such as
the ‘Theory of Sampling and its Applications in the Mineral
Industry’, but with no additional time to digest the material,
are not overly inspired by the topic.
The absence of this highly important subject from most
university curricula is due in part to the historical
development and age of the mining industry, the argument
being that we have done well without it up to now, why
bother us with an approach that is likely to cost time and
money. Other reasons relate to a lack of appreciation of this
relatively new subject matter that was formalized by Pierre
Gy in the 1940s and 1950s, but has only recently been
popularized in South Africa by consultants and sampling
experts such as Pitard, Francois Bongarcon and several
others. The first accredited postgraduate course in the
theory of sampling was presented through the Geostatistical
Association of South Africa (GASA) at the University of
the Witwatersrand in 1998 by Dominique Francois-
Bongarcon, although Geoff Lyman had presented a short
course without any accreditation to the South African
Statistical Association in 1997. More recently both Francis
Pitard and Dominique Francois-Bongarcon have presented
short courses in sampling theory and methods through
GASA at the School of Mining Engineering at the
University of the Witwatersrand.
Industry education and training
Short courses
David Pollard was for 11 years the Education Manager with
the Australian Mineral Foundation (AMF) an industry body
which provided information services and professional
development programs (1972–2001) to the minerals and
petroleum industries. Professional development was offered
via short courses, workshops, seminars and conferences,
drawing on the best available international expertise. For
180 FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON SAMPLING & BLENDING
example, Pierre Gy presented some courses for AMF in the
1970s, while Francis Pitard presented courses from 1990
until AMF closed in 2002.
During the last decade of AMF, the syllabus was
structured to provide courses at levels appropriate to the
experience of attendees. Short courses were designed for
recent graduates, experienced professionals, and technical
managers. Cross-disciplinary courses both within the
industry (e.g. geophysics for geologists) and for the broader
community (e.g. Geology for Bankers, Brokers and
Analysts) formed an important part of AMF’s role.
Sampling courses by Francis Pitard were introduced in
1990, and it quickly became clear that courses tailored to
target groups in the industry were successful. Many courses
were presented inhouse for companies and other
organizations (universities, government geological surveys
etc), and these were tailored for the interests and activities
of the participants. Public courses such as Sampling for
Exploration, Sampling for Iron Ore, Sampling for Process
Control, etc. were very popular, while courses such as
Sampling for Reconciliation between Mine and Mill
brought geologists and metallurgists together to resolve
traditional disputes through common understanding. These
courses were illustrated with case studies relevant to each
group of attendees.
The level of presentation of sampling short courses was
extended both upward and downward. Training courses for
operators, samplers and others (including maintenance
personnel) were found to be successful in improving the
adherence to sampling protocols in many companies. The
success of these is attributed to several factors: It is unusual
for an international consultant to present a training course
to operators and technicians and they felt important; the
course reinforced their previous training but from a
different perspective, and the presenter (Francis Pitard)
explained the logic and rationale of correct sampling in a
way that they understood.
A key factor in the success of these operator courses is
the length and content of the course. Too much detail and
attention wanders. Relevance to their particular workplace
is important, and Pitard is able to use specific examples
from the operation as a result of his consulting experience
and a site inspection prior to the course. A course of 2–3
hours is optimum; a full day is too much for these groups.
Moving up the company structure, managers who have an
understanding of the importance of good sampling are able
to provide valuable support and make better decisions. A
seminar for managers titled ‘Correct Sampling Improves
Profit’ emphasizes the cost of poor sampling, and the target
group should extend to executive management, including
finance and marketing management.
The first managers seminar we ran was for a company
operating a mine in a remote area of Australia. The brief
was to present a short course for geologists and engineers
on site, but when a charter plane of head office
management arrived for a visit, an impromptu seminar was
arranged for them. The feedback from the site operations
managers encouraged us to develop the concept; they said,
‘We found it much easier to gain capital expenditure
approval to upgrade our sampling systems after that
seminar.’
From Francis Pitard’s experience, some mining
companies in Mexico and Chile prefer to have two two-day
courses back to back so they can expose more people to the
necessary knowledge and reach a critical mass so
everybody speaks the same language. Some key people
actually attend both courses. A large mine in South
Australia adopts the same approach for training operators
about sampling.
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Francis Pitard and David Pollard continue to work
together to develop and present courses in Australia and
neighbouring countries. Our experience is that two-day
short courses are generally preferred by companies because
they minimize the absence from the workplace of the
professional staff, which is important as there are generally
no staff to cover absences. Some companies book three-day
in-house courses, as this allows time to examine and discuss
company data and company practices, as well as more time
for working through case studies. In-house sampling
courses are also offered by other sampling consultants,
some of whom are present at this conference.
Public courses organized by Pitard and Pollard are mostly
presented in association with conferences of the
Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM).
Companies support the idea of a quality course adding
value to a conference, as it optimizes the experience of staff
during a single trip away from the site.
In the USA we are aware of only one regular public
sampling course for the minerals industry, which Francis
Pitard presents through the Colorado School of Mines
SPACE (Special Programs and Continuing Education)
programme12.
Conferences
The value of conferences is obvious to all present at this
and other sampling conferences. Conferences achieve two
major objectives for delegates, information transfer and
networking. Discussions with other delegates, authors and
exhibitors provide very valuable information and insights
into problems and decisions, and knowledge of where to
find expertise.
Interactive workshops
Drawing on his AMF experience, David Pollard developed
a format for advanced level interactive workshops which
provide opportunity for peer to peer discussion. Three such
workshops have been convened on sampling topics: Critical
Issues in Sampling (2004), Critical Issues in Sampling Coal
(2005) and Sampling Errors and Creative Accounting—
Sampling in Difficult Situations (2008). These have been
run in conjunction with sampling and metallurgical
conferences of the AusIMM. The format appears simple—
the audience is assumed to be familiar with the subject and
the issues under examination, the topics to be discussed are
clearly defined, and 10–12 speakers present for 10 minutes
each on a specific aspect of the topic. The rest of the
workshop is open discussion. The development phase to
define the issues, involving discussions with many people
in the industry, is fundamental but time consuming. The
role of workshop Chair is critical, the selection of speakers
is vital, and enthusiastic involvement of the audience is
necessary for the workshop to succeed. So far these
workshops have met with critical acclaim, but the six or
more months of planning that precedes them is fraught with
uncertainty.
Consulting
There are many sampling consultants who work with
companies in the minerals (and other) industries. Few
companies seek expert advice from independent experts at
the process design stage, and when problems become
apparent the mine plan has been determined and the
processing plant has been designed and built. At that stage
it is difficult to gain approval to rebuild or retrofit
expensive sampling systems.
The Theory of Sampling (TOS) teaches fundamental
differences between structural problems (causes) and
circumstantial problems (effects). Francis Pitard did some
MISCONCEPTIONS, RUMOUR, AND HEARSAY ABOUT SAMPLING
auditing work recently in a major mining operation in North
America where 17 structural problems were found and none
of them was taken seriously, while many subsequent
circumstantial problems were the object of daily meetings,
research programmes costing millions of dollars and finger
pointing. Solutions to structural problems were dismissed as
non-practical and too much capital cost.
Some of the companies which use consultants to provide
advice on design and auditing also have training and
professional development programmes to ensure that
operators and staff appreciate the importance of correct
sampling. Our experience is that this philosophy is usually
driven by one person in the company, and that person is
more likely to be a geologist than an engineer. Very often
when that person moves on, the company abandons its
commitment to ongoing education and consulting in the
area of sampling. This change is not observed in other areas
where consultants are used and education is important, such
as occupational health and safety, geotechnical engineering,
ventilation, IT systems, etc. The reason may be that these
other areas are the subject of regulatory requirements or
corporate policy, and are obviously critical to production,
safety and management of the operation. Good sampling is
too often ignored by management and not seen as a
particularly high priority until commissioning of new plant
is compromised, or recovery and tonnage fall, or in the
extreme case, a project is abandoned because technical or
financial decisions have been based on poor sampling.
Case study: planning a major expansion13,14,15
The Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium deposit, 500 km
north of Adelaide in South Australia, is the largest uranium
resource in the world, the fourth largest copper resource and
the fourth largest gold resource in the world. The orebody
measures 6 km × 3 km × 800 m, and is still open laterally
and at depth. It has been mined since 1988, and was
acquired by BHP Billiton in 2005. The orebody is not only
very large, the geology and mineralogy is complex.
From very early days, WMC (the original owners)
employed a small highly skilled mineralogical team to help
understand the complex orebody. They contracted
consulting plus in-house short courses on sampling for
geologists, metallurgists and laboratory staff from Francis
Pitard. They also had shorter and more practical courses for
operators, samplers and other technical staff. A relatively
high turnover of staff and operators meant that these
courses were repeated at regular intervals. At technical
management level, a one-day course was developed and a
wide cross-section of managers and senior professional
staff has participated. The result was a workforce and
technical management team which had a good
understanding of correct sampling practice.
In 2005 a prefeasibility study was commenced by BHP
Billiton, the new owners, to expand the mine from 10 mtpa
to possibly 40 mtpa. This is now complete, and involved
drilling 1 348 holes, totalling 1 016 549 metres. A
geometallurgical team was established to oversee the
programme of drill core analysis, ore characterization,
mineralogical analysis and metallurgical test work.
The drilling programme was all diamond drilling, and
employed more than 30 drill rigs on site. Core processing
was performed at site by a core processing team of 40, who
were capable and efficient at the very repetitive work, and
all trained personally by the principal geometallurgist.
Heterogeneity tests were performed at site. 15 m lengths of
¼ core were subjected to staged crushing, rotary splitting at
sizes determined by the heterogeneity, and screened into
size fractions for further examination. Mineralogical
analysis was performed on selected ¼ core from about
1 000 holes.
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1.5 million samples were routinely analysed for 27
elements as well as density and magnetic susceptibility.
Metallurgical testwork comprised comminution, flotation
and leaching tests, with assays and mineralogical analysis
on all products. Recovery models (1 000 samples),
predictive mineralogy models (based on 10 000 samples)
and grade models were combined to give a geometallurgy
enabled resource model.
Thirty-six specific holes, twinned to selected previous
holes, were drilled to provide material for metallurgical
testwork. The metallurgical test work was carried out at
Amdel’s laboratories in Adelaide, which employed 200
people, with some work by several other laboratories in
Australia. Amdel ran an in-house sampling course for their
staff during the work.
The geometallurgy enabled resource model resulting from
this work comprises about 8 million 30 × 30 × 15 m blocks,
and will allow precise development of both the mine plan
and the processing plant design. This is the most exhaustive
and complete prefeasibility study ever undertaken in
Australia and possibly the world.
Detailed drilling, mineralogy and metallurgical test work
is normally carried out on other large deposits; however, the
scale of the Olympic Dam prefeasibility campaign makes it
a landmark achievement in understanding an orebody in
order to plan a mine and design a processing plant for a
100-year mine life. The accuracy and thus the value of the
whole project was dependent on the highest confidence in
the sampling regime, and the skill and experience of the
geometallurgical team to manage the process, train the
operators, and interpret the results.
Conclusion
Sampling must become a more important topic in university
courses for people entering the minerals industry in order
that companies can make better technical and economic
decisions about orebodies and their development, mining
and processing. To achieve this it is necessary to improve
the understanding of university staff about the relevance
and importance of good sampling practice.
Misconception, rumour and hearsay about sampling can
be overcome in the minerals industry by training and
education about sampling for professional staff,
management and operators, leading to improved decision
making and better operations, with reduced losses and
increased profits.
References
1. PITARD, F.F. Pierre Gy's Sampling Theory and
Sampling Practice, 2nd Edition, CRC Press, Florida,
1993.
2. BROOKS, C.C. Sampling and Analysis Without Fear
or Favour, PACRIM 2004 Conference, Adelaide,
September 2004, The AusIMM, Melbourne, 2004, pp.
465–472.
3. BLAINEY, G. Mines in the Spinifex–The Story of Mt
Isa, Angus and Robertson, 1960, p. 97.
4. BERKMAN, D.A. Monograph 9–Field Geologists
Manual, 4th Revised Edition, The AusIMM,
Melbourne, 2001.
5. RYAN, R. Field Guide for Geoscientists and
Technicians The AusIMM, Melbourne, 2007.
6. PITARD, F.F. Blast Hole Sampling for Grade Control
—The Many Problems and Solutions, Sampling 2008
Conference, Perth, May 2008, The AusIMM,
Melbourne, 2008, pp. 15–21.
7. http://www.amira.com.au/WEB/site.asp?section=
projects&page=projectdetails&ProjectLink=2679&So
urce_ID=1 Accessed 19 May 2009.
8. DEPARTMENT OF MINERALS AND ENERGY,
2009. Mine Surveyors Certificate of Competency
Examination, Overview. http://www.dme.gov.za/mhs/
surveying. stm. Accessed on 12 May 2009.
9. CHAMBER OF MINES SOUTH AFRICA, Basic
Sampling. GFBLA/MRM-EVA-BASAMP The Gold
Fields Academy. Gold Fields Training Services. 2009,
118 pp.
10. STORRAR, C.D. South African Mine Valuation.
Chamber of Mines of South Africa, Johannesburg.
1987. 470 pp.
11. ANDERSON, J. C. Elementary Sampling, Chamber
of Mines Mineral Resource Management. GFA/Min/
Ser/M008. The Gold Fields Academy. Gold Fields
Training Services and Gold Fields Trust. 2000, 95 pp.
12. http://outreach.mines.edu/cont_ed/pitard1.html
Accessed 19 May 2009.
13. YEELES, R. 30th ATSE Symposium, Resources
Boom: Opportunities and Consequences, Perth, 19
November 2007.
14. EHRIG, K. Technical Presentation to the AusIMM
Adelaide Branch, 16 April 2009 (unpublished).
15. BHP Billiton Olympic Dam Expansion Draft EIS
Report, 1 May 2009. http://www.bhpbilliton.com/bb/
odxEis/downloads/draftEisDocuments.jsp Accessed
on 17 May 2009.

David Pollard
Director, Salamander Consulting (Pty) Ltd

Several years with BHP steelworks after graduation, 20 years lecturing metallurgy at the University
of Melbourne and University of South Australia, 11 years Education Manager, Australian Mineral
Foundation developing and managing professional development short courses and conferences for
the minerals and petroleum industries (about 50 short courses and several conference per year in
Australia and other countries).
2001 – present: consulting via Salamander Consulting in professional development, developing and
convening conferences. Chair of the AusIMM Metallurgical Society, member of the AusIMM
Education Committee for many years.

182 FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON SAMPLING & BLENDING