Introduction

Quantitative mineral resource assessment, as developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), consists of three parts: (1) development of grade and tonnage mineral deposit models; (2) delineation of tracts permissive for each deposit type; and (3) probabilistic estimation of the numbers of undiscovered deposits for each deposit type. The estimate of the number of undiscovered deposits at different levels of probability is the input to the EMINERS (Economic Mineral Resource Simulator) program. EMINERS uses a Monte Carlo statistical process to combine probabilistic estimates of undiscovered mineral deposits with models of mineral deposit grade and tonnage to estimate mineral resources.

Version 3.0 of the EMINERS program is available as this USGS Open-File Report 2004–1344. Changes from version 2.0 include updating 87 grade and tonnage models, designing new templates to produce graphs showing cumulative distribution and summary tables, and disabling economic filters. The economic filters were disabled because embedded data for costs of labor and materials, mining techniques, and beneficiation methods are out of date. However, the cost algorithms used in the disabled economic filters are still in the program and available for reference for mining methods and milling techniques. The release notes included with this report give more details on changes in EMINERS over the years.

EMINERS is written in C++ and depends upon the Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 programming environment. The code depends heavily on the use of Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) for implementation of the Windows interface. The program works only on Microsoft Windows XP or newer personal computers. It does not work on Macintosh computers.

For help in using the program in this report, see the “Quick-Start Guide for Version 3.0 of EMINERS—Economic Mineral Resource Simulator” (W.J. Bawiec and G.T. Spanski, 2012, USGS Open-File Report 2009–1057, linked at right). It demonstrates how to execute EMINERS software using default settings and existing deposit models.

Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

First posted Version 3.0, June 29, 2012