Mining: Prospecting, Exploration, Strategies, Native Title Rights, JORC Compliance, and Engineering Geologists

This research paper discusses the various aspects of mining, including prospecting, exploration, strategies, native title rights, JORC compliance, and the role of engineering geologists. It also covers the current operating mine sites in Australia and the importance of understanding the cultural heritage of the proposed area of exploration.

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RESEARCH PAPER ON MINING
A Research Paper on Mining By
Student’s Name
Name of the Professor
Institutional Affiliation
City/State
Year/Month/Day

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Define the term prospecting and exploration in mining
Prospecting is the first stage of the analysis of geology of the territory and involves searching of
the fossils, minerals mineral specimens and precious metals physically. It is a small scale form of
exploration of minerals that is organized, large-scale efforts performed by the mineral companies
to get the commercial deposit of the viable ore. The process of prospecting involves the
traversing, sifting, panning, outcrop investigation and the looking for the mineralization signs
(Council, 2013).
Exploration is the sequential process of gathering the information that evaluates the mineral
potential in a given region. The first step is to have the idea or the model of geology that identify
lands that are worthy of the exploration (Kucera, 2012)
What are the aim objectives of the exploration?
There are many objectives of the exploration and some of the main ones are stated below
 To create jobs that can improve the resident’s economy and the entire community.
 To compensate properly the impacts the operation may bring to the livelihood and
properties of the residents affected.
 When the operation of mining is set to start, the company of exploration should provide
the medical facilities for the residents affected.
 Training for the residents affected for them to qualify for the jobs in the company and
schools for the children in the affected community (Kumar, 2011)

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Outline the prospecting and then exploration strategies which need to be undertaken in the
acquisition of the mineral deposit
Planning: The process of exploration begins with the analysis and gathering of the data on the
probable areas of exploration. The objective is to find the regions of the exploration interest and
to strategize about the stages. The information includes the maps, company filed reports, and
geological survey reports for the assessment (Marjoribanks, 2013).
Reconnaissance; its purpose is to find out the inconsistencies that shows the existence of
mineralization in the highlighted regions during planning. The actions include geochemical
survey and geophysical surveys, rock sampling, geological mapping, and prospecting.
Advanced exploration; after the identification of the anomalies, exploration can be in more
rigorous phase to evaluate the presence of the economic mineral deposits. The activities involved
include drilling, trenching, and stripping (Reedman, 2010).
Sampling and assaying; this is the collection of the parts of the representation of the mineral
deposits. Assays are the chemical test that defines the metal content of the rock sample.
Economic evaluation; after the determination of the quality and size of the ore deposit to the high
probability degree, economic evaluation is determined to estimate the operation cost and the
capital of mine (Ungemach, 2013).
Question 2
The table below illustrated the name and geographical locality of the current operating mine sites
of each of the states namely South Australia, West Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, and
Victoria. The name of each shareholding companies that owns every mining suites is also stated

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in the table. The geographical setting, major ore-bearing rock type and the commercial uses of
the deposits in every mine sites are also explained in the table.
States Name and
geographica
l locality
Name of the
principle
shareholding
company
Geographical setting Major ore-
bearing rock
type
Commercial uses of the
economic deposit
Victoria Bendigo and
Ballarat
Victoria paradise Located on the narrowed
river in the central highland
of Victoria
Igneous Create job opportunities
Queensway mount
Morgan and
Mary
Kathleen
uranium
Mount Morgan
gold mining
company limited
It is located in the
Rockhampton region,
Queensland, Australia
(Kumar, 2011)
Sedimentary and
igneous rock
Contained fireclay caverns
excavated to provide clay
for the mine of brickwork
New south
wales
Peabody Peabody energy
corporation
It is located in the Salem
country club
sedentary They, market their coal to
the electricity generating
companies (Kumar, 2011)
Western
Australia
Pilbara Multinational Rio
tinto group
Located in the west of
Australia extending south
from the De Grey River
Greenstone-
Archean granite
Enhance trade
South
Australia
Adelaide
Hills
Hill grove resource-
limited company
(Kumar, 2011)
Is the part of the ranges of
mount lofty, east of the
Adelaide city in the state of
South Australia
Igneous Earns the state foreign
exchange
Question 3
Before performing any activity on the minerals, the proponent must solve the issues relating to
the native title rights and the protection of the cultural heritage of the Greenfield people. The
native title rights and the interest possessed by the Torres Strait and aboriginal islander people in
the underlying land, regulated and protected under the native title act. The native title partied
have the rights to negotiate with the mineral title applicants about how the operation of the
minerals are likely to affect the native title right of the parties and the interests. In the relation to
the exploration, the resolution of the native titles matters can be the simple and short process.
Resolution of the native title for the mining grant lease can take around 18 months and may need
the paying the important compensation (Reedman, 2010).

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Separately to the native title mining proponent have the duty of the care by the legislation state to
take all the important steps not to damage the aboriginal cultural heritage. This is normally
remedied by having the cultural management agreement with the relevant parties of the
aboriginals. The requirement of the cultural heritage management agreement may be essential to
entry to the land under the mining title. an applicant for the lease of mining can also enter into
the agreement of the land use with the native title parties to comply with the native title act for
the mining lease grant and any project inputs like the water, power and the rail corridor access,
Also the applicant should be registered under the native title act to ensure they satisfy the
requirement (Ungemach, 2013).
Understanding the culture and the heritage values of the proposed area of exploration both the
aboriginal and non-aboriginal is needed to make sure that the program for the exploration does
not interfere or damage the site or the object of importance. The awareness of the items of the
potential heritage in the exploration area should allow the activities to be planned to minimize or
avoid the adverse impacts. According to the act of national parks and wildlife, section 86(1) it is
not right to harm the object that the person is known as the indigenous object. Also under the
section 86(4) or 86(2) it is the offence to harm an Aboriginal object. under the heritage act,
section 57 stated that a person may not demolish destroy, damage, any object, building or a place
that is the subject of heritage interim order or listed in the register of the state heritage without
the suitable approval or permit (Kumar, 2011).
According to the national parks and wildlife act, section 118A states that a person should not
pick or harm, any animal or plant that is threatened species, endangered ecological communities,
or endangered population, or the critical habitat.
Question 4

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Discussion of the statement that the results of the exploration program are JORC compliant and
are undertaken by the competent person.
The JORC is the professional coded of the practice that states the minimum standards of the
public mineral reporting the mineral resources, ore reserves, and exploration results. It gives the
important systems for the classification of the mineral resources, ore reserves, and mineral
exploration results according to the levels of the confidence in the knowledge of geology.
Economic and technical consideration in the public reports. The public reports prepared ion the
accordance of the JORC codes are the reports made for the reason of informing the potential
investors and their advisors. They are not limited but include to quaternary and annual reports of
the company, memoranda information, press release, website posting, technical papers, and the
public presentation of the results of exploration, approximates of ore reserves and mineral
resources (Marjoribanks, 2013).
 The results of exploration are the information and data generated by the mineral exploration
program to be used by the investors but do not form the part of the declaration of the ore
reserves or mineral resources. The report of the information is common in some starting
stages of the mining when the data quantity is not enough to allow relevant estimates of the
mineral resources, such as sampling results, results of geochemical and geophysical results.
For the exploration report to comply with the JORC codes, the following should be
considered (Council, 2013).
 Transparency; the public report reader should be issued with the appropriate data, clear
appearance, and unambiguous to understand and should not mislead any information.

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 Materiality; this requires that the public reports should have all the required information that
the professional advisor and the investors would need and expect to find in the report
reasonably to make a relevant and balanced judgement concerning the exploration results.
 Competence; it obliges that the public report depend on the work which is the duty of an
experienced, suitable, and qualified person who is the subject of professional codes of the
enforceable ethics (Kucera, 2012).
The competent person is the mineral industry professional who is a member of the Australasian
Institute of metallurgy and mining, geoscientist or recognized the professional organization. This
individual must have at least five years of appropriate experience in the mineralization style or
the deposit type under the deliberation and in the field being undertaken by the individual. The
person must have the relevant experience in the activity being undertaken (Reedman, 2010).
Question 5
The engineering geologists should provide some of the information to the technical service
division about the whole mine plan. They must disclose the clarification of the targets based on
the exploration results of the program undertaken. They must include the description of the
process used to get the tonnage and grades ranges used in the description of the exploration
target. They should provide the information on how they managed to use the knowledge of ore
occurrence and genesis to locate the prospective deposit. Environment associated with the type
of deposit off mineral also should be explained. They should give the report about the JORC to
confirm if the project complies with the requirements, also they should make sure that they
follow the regulation of mining like ensuring that there is no interference with the biodiversity,
environment, other natural resource and the cultural heritage of the people (Kumar, 2011).

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About planning they should illustrate on how they started with analysis and gathering of the data
on the prospective areas of exploration. The reason is to find the areas of interest for exploration
and to strategize about the phases. The data includes the maps, company filed reports, and
geological survey reports for the assessment (Kucera, 2012).
Conclusion
Mining is very risky business and in order to minimize the risks, it is very important to have a
wide and well-defined knowledge and understanding of the regions of geology when targeting
and developing the prospective sites. The exploration is time-consuming when performed by the
traditional laboratory, methods hence the modern methods should be used like the reflectance
spectroscopy which is the consistency, cheap and has been used for many years in the analysis of
worldwide resources.

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Bibliography
Council, N., 2013. Assessment of Mars Science and Mission Priorities. Sydney: National Academies Press.
Kucera, B., 2012. Prospecting and Exploration of Mineral Deposits. Melbourne: Elsevier.
Kumar, S., 2011. Mineral Exploration: Principles and Applications. Perth: Newnes.
Marjoribanks, R., 2013. Geological Methods in Mineral Exploration and Mining. Colorado: Springer
Science & Business Media.
Reedman, H., 2010. Techniques in Mineral Exploration. Toledo: Springer Science & Business Media.
Ungemach, S., 2013. Advances in European Geothermal Research: Proceedings of the Second
International Seminar on the Results of EC Geothermal Energy Research. Perth: Springer Science &
Business Media.