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Case studies.

Hellas Gold is a gold, silver, lead, zinc and copper mining company based in Athens, Greece. Since 2004, the Kassandra Mines in NE Halkidiki have been developing and operating responsibly, safely and under the strictest environmental conditions, employing over 1,600 employees.

The GeoCore X10® was installed in November 2018 at Hellas Gold facilities at Stratoni Halkidiki, and the scanning work commenced. Since the deposit at Mavres Petres is structurally controlled, the decision was later made, in 2019, to drill 850 meters of oriented drill cores to map out geological structures.

Mission
The mission was to demonstrate the benefits and define the use cases of using the GeoCore X10® drill core scanner onsite. We sought to prove that the efficiency and sustainability of mining operations can be improved, using on the insights generated from the innovative integration X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), X-Ray Transmission (XRT) technologies.
Implementation
The GeoCore X10® was installed in November 2018 at Hellas Gold facilities at Stratoni Halkidiki. Training was performed onsite and included radiation safety, handling of the machine, and operating the scanner. There was also training on how to process the results of the analysis in Orexplore Insight®. The machine was deployed in a separate room, close to the core shed facility, to gain easy access to drill cores for scanning. The scanning was finalised in summer 2020.
Result
The team used the scanned data digital high-resolution structural core logging, quick and non-destructive identification of geotechnical features, and data-enhanced 3D Geo modelling. It was particularly interesting to see how measured structures in the oriented drill cores could be imported into Leapfrog, and aligned with the global coordinate system. Another key finding and next step, is to incorporate the produced density model to the monthly reconciliation process comparing mine and mill output.

Mission

The mission was to demonstrate the benefits and define the use cases of using the GeoCore X10® drill core scanner onsite. We sought to prove that the efficiency and sustainability of mining operations can be improved, using on the insights generated from the innovative integration X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), X-Ray Transmission (XRT) technologies.

Implementation

The GeoCore X10® was installed in November 2018 at Hellas Gold facilities at Stratoni Halkidiki. Training was performed onsite and included radiation safety, handling of the machine, and operating the scanner. There was also training on how to process the results of the analysis in Orexplore Insight®. The machine was deployed in a separate room, close to the core shed facility, to gain easy access to drill cores for scanning. The scanning was finalised in summer 2020.

Result

The team used the scanned data digital high-resolution structural core logging, quick and non-destructive identification of geotechnical features, and data-enhanced 3D Geo modelling. It was particularly interesting to see how measured structures in the oriented drill cores could be imported into Leapfrog, and aligned with the global coordinate system. Another key finding and next step, is to incorporate the produced density model to the monthly reconciliation process comparing mine and mill output.

“The GeoCore X10® analyser adds value to our work by identifying quickly, and non-destructively, geotechnical features like fractures, joints, lithology contacts and density measurement.”

— Sofia Kalampaliki, Geologist

A closer look.

Results in detail.

Quick and non-destructive identification of geotechnical features.

The data sets retrieved from the digital structural core logging were used to measure and identify geotechnical features such as fractures, joints, lithology contacts and obtaining density measurements. The datasets could be applied to the normal workflow and also to support enhanced modelling using the density measurements — something that was not previously routinely measured.

Data enhanced 3D geo modelling.

There was no need to change the geo modelling software, and the continuous high-resolution scanning data was routinely exported to Leapfrog. The additional datasets led to more accurate 3D ore modelling. The density data from the Geocore X10® analyser were compared with historic Hellas Gold measurements, validating the results. A 3D-density model was created with inverse distance estimation method and assisted in evaluating the Mavres Petres resource block model.

Digital structural core logging.

The Hellas Gold team conducted a comparative study between traditional manual structural logging — working with the physical core — and working digitally with the 3D tomographic representation in Orexplore Insight®. The comparison showed a significant time saving. Manual logging required two geologists while the corresponding digital workflow (using the GeoCore X10® and Orexplore Insight®) only required one geologist. The other geologist’s time could be allocated to other tasks.

In action.

See for yourself.

See the GeoCore X10® in action at Hellas Gold's Stratoni Halkidiki site as part of the ambitious X-Mine project.

"With the drill core analyser, we have the chance to see a whole suite of elements — non-destructively — which is extremely useful for exploration purposes. It’s effortless to use for achieving density and structural data which traditionally it takes much more time. It is a very powerful tool."

— Pavlos Tsitsanis, Exploration manager