Dynamic Anisotropy

Mining technology



Improve your Grade Estimation with Dynamic Anisotropy
The Dynamic Anisotropy option has been added to Studio 3 which allows the anisotropy rotation angles for defining the search volume and variogram models to be defined individually for each cell in the model.Thus the search volume is oriented precisely and follows the trend of the mineralization, which leads to improved grade estimates.
The method is particularly suitable for gently folded and rolling orebodies where previously an average direction of mineralization would have been used.This is illustrated in the figure below which shows how the search ellipses follow the mineralization:

Not only does the search ellipse follow the mineralization but the same anisotropy angles are used for calculating the sample weights for inverse power of distance and for the rotation of the variogram model for kriging. The upper cross section in the figure below shows the grade profile using a horizontal search ellipse and the lower cross section using dynamic anisotropy.The improvement is obvious!

In can be shown that a misalignment of the search volume by just a few degrees can cause the interpolation of ore into waste and waste into ore leading to incorrect estimates. It is therefore very important to get the orientation of the search volume correctly aligned.In the case of highly folded or deformed orebodies Studio’s Unfold option still provides the optimal solution, but for more gently folded cases the Dynamic Anisotropy method provides a fast and easy to use option.