A Comparative Study for 3D Surface Modeling of Coal Deposit by Spatial Interpolation Approaches

Abstract

The planning stages of mining require comprehensive and detailed analyses. The proper determination of the orebody boundary is one of the most important points to provide optimum model structure and projections. The limits can be determined by different methods based on the site geology. Although some three dimensional (3D) models were proposed for providing detailed information concerning a mine deposit, developing a solid model via a 3D approach is novelty. In other words, surface modeling should be performed for creating a solid model and determining limits of the deposit. In this way, sensible generation of the surface model can be achieved. This study investigated the estimation capability of the polynomial approach, which is a novel spatial interpolation method, for modeling a coal deposit surface. The performance of the proposed model was compared with some conventional methods in the literature. The results showed that the polynomial interpolation method is an effective method to employ for surface modeling of a mine deposit. © 2013 The Society of Resource Geology.