mineral resource modelling

Geologists break the model mould and ask what if we started resource estimation from scratch

What if resource estimation wasn’t just updated, but completely reimagined? At the AusIMM 2025 Mineral Resource Estimation Conference in Perth, two respected voices in the field—Jacqui Coombes and Paul Hodkiewicz—stepped away from PowerPoint slides and into a candid, thought-provoking dialogue that challenged the mining industry to rethink its most foundational assumptions.

Why your mine plan’s lying to you - and what Rondon and Assibey-Bonsu say to do about it before it costs you millions in misclassified waste and phantom tonnes

At the AusIMM 2025 Mineral Resource Estimation Conference, Dr Oscar Rondon, principal geostatistician at Datamine, tackled a question that has dogged mining professionals for decades: Is estimating recoverable resources still hopeless? The talk revisited a decades-old challenge in resource estimation, combining Rondon’s clear communication with Assibey-Bonsu’s extensive experience in the mining industry.

When gold doesn’t follow the rules, machine learning finds the clues and a folded dome reveals why your domains were lying to you all along

At the 2025 AusIMM Mineral Resource Estimation Conference in Perth, geologist Jordan McDivitt delivered a sharp, technically grounded presentation on how machine learning and structural geology can work hand in hand to model complexity in orogenic gold systems.

Kriging is cheating, the best estimate is a myth, and it's time resource modellers embraced uncertainty to do it right—and ethically

In a rousing keynote at AusIMM’s 2025 Mineral Resource Estimation Conference, Dr Clayton Deutsch—director and professor at the School of Mining Engineering, University of Alberta—challenged the audience to confront a fundamental flaw in how mineral resource estimators approach their craft.