Hard rock miner’s handbook / Справочник горнорабочего по твердым породам

Hard rock mining is mainly concerned with metallic ores. The principles of geology and ore reserve estimation described in this chapter have application to all types of mining, but the particulars are curtailed when it comes to placer operations or the mining of industrial minerals, salt, and coal.
The delineation and grade of a hard rock orebody are first made by diamond drilling (as opposed to reverse circulation drilling or test pits). Confirmation (risk reduction) is accomplished if miners subsequently drive an underground entry to complete  additional exploration drilling and sampling. Miners use the term “exploration geology” to denote the implementation and interpretation of all this work.
This chapter is mainly concerned with the sequence of events that occur between the discovery of a mineralized deposit, through its classification as a mineral resource, on to the determination whether and to what extent that it constitutes a mineral reserve (mineral resource that may be exploited at a profit).
In recent years, the miner’s role has been less concerned with exploration geology and ore reserve estimation. The latter, once the responsibility of a professional mining engineer, is now typically performed by a “geoscientist” (geologist, geological engineer, geochemist, or geophysicist). The change has not occurred without problems. The root cause is commonly believed to be that geo-scientists were not regulated by a professional body and hence could not be held legally responsible for their actions. As a remedy, some Canadian provinces (with the notable exception of Ontario) and a few of the states are now admitting qualified geo-scientists into their associations of professional engineers.
Hence, this chapter does not provide full consideration for geology and reserves, but deals more with driving entries for underground exploration, which is the domain of the miner.