How to create a Long Section Puncture Plot in SURPAC Part 1

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Blog Part 1 of 4 | SURPAC – Long Section Puncture Plots.

As an underground geologist, one of your job’s may be to create a long section puncture plot of the ore body drill-hole intercepts displaying the grade and true width.

This plot can then be used to help monitor the grades while mining, and to assist in the design of infill drilling programs to upgrade the resource-reserves.

In this first in a series of 4 posts on this topic, we outline the steps to create a Long Section Puncture Plot of the Mine Ore Zone displaying Hole ID, grade and true thickness.

 

Coding the Geological Database, compositing

and calculating True Thickness

 

Step 1

Create an intercept table in the database if this is not done already.

Database > Administration > Create Table

 

 

 

 

Step 2

A zone code now needs to be assigned to the database for the solid/dtm you want to composite.

Database > Analysis > Assign Multiple Domains.

In this scenario we used a default code of 0 for all the drill hole intercepts outside of the solid, and 100 for the drill hole intercepts inside the solid.

 

 

 

Step 3

The database now needs to be composited using zone=100 as a constraint.

Database > Composite > by Geological Constraints

 

 

 

 

 

Step 4

A string file will be produced with the following information in the Dfields. D1 has the composite assay field that we require.

 

 

 

Step 5

Open up the resultant string file and delete the string that is at the collar (usually string 2) and save.

 

 

 

Step 6

We now need to calculate the true width of the interval previously composited.

Database > extract > zone thickness and depth.

Tick the box for ‘use true thickness’, and enter in the dip and dip direction of the ore body.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 7

A string file will be produced with the following information in the Dfields. D2 contains the true thickness.

 

 

 

Step 8

Open up the resultant string file and again delete the string that is at the collar (usually string 2) and save

 

 

Color the strings by Grade

 

Step 9

The data now needs to be broken up into grade bins.

File tools > Classify strings by number

 

 

 

Step 10

Open up the resultant string file and adjust the styles.

Customise > display properties > strings and points

Customise the color, the marker type and size. Remember to save the styles file, then save the string file, so the styles file is hard coded with the styles file you have just created.

 

 

 

Step 11

Repeat Steps the above steps if you want the thickness broken up into set color bins.

 

 

Creating a Simple Long Section Puncture Plot

 

Step 12

Depending on the strike of the ore body, you may just be able to do a simple long section, or you may need to cut an oblique section (quick planes), or cut an inclined plane (planes > inclined > planes through 3 points) through the ore.

For this example, we will just do a simple long section.

 

Step 13

Digitize a boundary string around the edge of the ore body

 

Step 14

Open up the boundary string, sample data and any design files you require. For this exercise we will just use the boundary and the puncture points.

 

Step 15

Click on the Y-Z view and display in Long Section and Plot.

 

 

 

Learn more about SURPAC 

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Links to all posts in this 4 part BLOG Series

Don’t forget to check out the rest of this blog series on Creating Long Section Puncture Plots in Surpac.

 

Part 1: Click here | In the first post we show how to create a Long Section Puncture Plot of the Mine Ore Zone displaying Hole ID, grade and true thickness.

Part 2: Click here | In the 2nd post, we look at creating an entity to display the hole ID, thickness and grade and to create a legend.

Part 3: Click here | In the 3rd post, we go through the process of creating a gram-meters plot and contouring the data.

Part 4: Click here | In the 4th post, we describe how to outline the Ore Body with greatest value with a contoured gram meter plot.

 

 

 

 

 

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Kim Ferguson-Thomas

Kim Ferguson-Thomas

Technical Customer Support Consultant, GEOVIA at Dassault Systèmes
Kim Ferguson-Thomas has more than 20 years’ experience as a geologist in the mining industry, working in exploration, underground and open-cut mines within Australia.