Reserve estimation of central part of Choghart north anomaly iron ore deposit through ordinary kriging method

This paper is devoted to application of ordinary kriging method in Choghart north anomaly iron ore deposit in Yazd province, Iran. In order to estimate the deposit, 2329 input data gained from 26 boreholes were used. Fe grade was selected as the major regional variable on which the present research has focused. All of the available data were changed to 12.5 m composites so that statistical regularization could be reached. Studies indicated that iron grade input data had single-population characteristics. To carry out ordinary kriging, a spherical model was fitted over empirical variogram. Then the model was verified through cross validation method and proved to be valid with a coherence coefficient of 0.773 between the estimated and real data. Plotting the empirical variogram in different directions showed no geometric anisotropy for the deposit. To estimate the Iron grade, ordinary kriging method was used according to which, all of the exploitable blocks with dimensions 20 m × 20 m × 12.5 m were block estimated within the estimation space. Finally tonnage-grade curve has been drawn and reserve classified into measured, indicated and inferred.