A geostatistical analysis of the Venus Mine, Yukon Territory ...

• Main Author: Stubens, Thomas Camillo
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Subjects: Tagish; Yukon
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0081113; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0081113

This thesis describes a geostatistical analysis of the Venus deposit in the Yukon Territory. The Venus Mine is located on Tagish Lake, approximately 1.5 miles north of the Yukon/B.C. border. It is a gold, silver, lead, zinc bearing quartz vein of late Cretaceous to early Tertiary age occurring in porphyritic andesite of the Mount Nansen Group volcanics. Three companies have attempted to mine Venus since its discovery in the late 1890's. In all three cases the operating company could not profitably mine the deposit and was forced to shut down. Overestimation of the ore reserves and problems with grade control were the main problems encountered by the failed operations. The study reported here applied a well-established geostatistical methodology to the Venus deposit. Over 3500 chip samples of the vein, collected at regular intervals along all development drifts and raises, were used in this analysis. Semi-variograms were calculated of 3 variables: vein thickness, gold accumulation and silver accumulation. ...