Application of Artificial Neural Network for the Prediction of Copper Ore Grade

Abstract

Precise prediction of ore grade is essential in feasibility studies, mine planning, open-pit and underground optimization, and ore grade control. Conventional methods, such as geometric and geostatistical methods, are the most popular techniques for mineral resource estimation but fail to capture the complexity of orebodies. Due to this limitation, grades are incorrectly estimated, leading to inaccurate mine plans and costly financial decisions. Here, we propose an ore grade prediction method using an artificial neural network (ANN). We collected 14,294 datasets from the Jaguar mine in Western Australia. The proposed model was developed by incorporating lithology, alteration, eastings, northwards, altitude, dip, and azimuth to predict the grade, and the performance evaluation metrics were measured based on the mean absolute error (MAE), mean square error (MSE), root mean square error (RMSE), correlation coefficient, R, and coefficient of determination (R2). The proposed ANN model outperformed classic machine learning methods with R2, R, MAE, MSE, and RMSE of 0.584, 0.765, 0.0018, 0.0016, and 0.041, respectively. The Shapley technique was used to evaluate the feature importance of the input variables for the grade prediction. Lithology demonstrated the highest influence on ore prediction, whereas eastings had the least impact on output. The proposed approach is promising for ore model prediction.