Horizon 2020 Research Trip

  • Posted on: 30 August 2017
  • By: richard

As part of the IMP@CT research programme (EU-funded Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Grant No. 730411), researchers from the Camborne School of Mines and Mineco embarked on the first fact finding research trip to Bosnia and Serbia in August.

Luke Palmer (University of Exeter / Camborne School of Mines), Dragan Djordjevic and Richard Roethe (Mineco) spent two weeks at Mineco’s mining projects, focussing on resource estimation and sampling best practice aspects, which are specific to narrow vein and complex base metal deposits. They carried out mapping and sampling field work in the parts of underground mines in Serbia and Bosnia.

As geological exploration work on narrow vein and steeply dipping targets is generally a highly expensive undertaking, the goal of this part of the research is to develop a strategy, in order to define the minimum resource which would warrant a start-up of a small containerised mining operations in the most efficient way. Further, the relationship between in-situ variability, drill spacing and business risk is being investigated.
The research on these topics will be continued on field trips over the next three years, contrasting different deposit types and different stage projects to develop a strategy that is universally applicable.

The trip was very successful and the research team is working on the results of the applied research methods. The next trip of this kind is estimated to take place later this year. More information about the project can be found at https://www.impactmine.eu/ .

Stay tuned.