Investigation of blast hole logging while drilling for the Pine Cove Mine

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Anaconda Mining Inc. operates the Pine Cove open pit gold mine and mill in the Baie Verte Mining District on the island of Newfoundland, and holds mineral rights for several other nearby gold deposits and projects in various stages of development. At the Pine Cove Mine, one major problem is related to mine blasting, grade control and overall recovery of ore. Currently, blast holes for bench blasts are drilled with rotary-percussion drills and bulk cuttings for the full blast hole are sampled when the hole is finished and analysed to determine the average ore grade within the hole interval. This will determine if the volume is designated as ore to send to the mill for processing, or waste to be directed to the waste area. However, using this method, it is difficult to determine the ore and waste rock intervals within a drilled blast hole, and it has been shown that a thin high grade zone can be mistakenly identified as a low grade waste zone due to the dilution of the cuttings. This results in portions of the blasted muck being grouped in the wrong ore grade category for processing or, worse, being designated as waste with no gold recovery at all. A means to identify the depth intervals for the formations drilled and corresponding sampled cuttings is needed, and this will be addressed through collaboration with the Drilling Technology Laboratory (DTL) at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). It is expected that positive outcomes form this proposed research would lead to further collaboration on rock penetration and fragmentation problems within the company's mining and development activities.