Development of methods based on neural networks in the estimation of mineral resources

Due to economic and physical limitations, our understanding of mineral resources in a specific area of interest is limited and fragmented. Traditionally, this problem has been solved using the Kriging geostatistical method, where the ore grade is estimated at unmeasured locations using known values of the grade at surrounding points. The advantage of this method lies in the calculation of weights through a spatial variability model known as a variogram. However, the method is imperfect, as it is based on the assumption of stationarity, aditivity, linearity and potential subjectivity in variographic modelling. This study proposes to approach the mineral resource estimation problem as a regression problem using neural networks, which are not subject to the restrictions of stationarity, aditivity, linearity and spatial modelling of geostatistics methods. Kriging and a radial basis function neural network and a multilayer perceptron have been compared using different validation metrics. The results show that a properly trained neural network model, with appropriate labelling of the mineral grade and its input characteristics, achieves similar results to the geostatistical approach, with a significant reduction in time, while avoiding all the aforementioned assumptions. However, neural networks do not consider the spatial correlation of ore grade or reproduce it at the locations where it was measured, characteristics that have marked distrust in its industrial implementation and that are discussed in this article, finally proposing an adjustment between both approaches at a minimum sacrifice of time and labor costs.