A mineral quantification method for wall rocks at open pit mines, and application to the Martha Au-Ag mine, Waihi, New Zealand

Pit lakes that result from open pit mining are potential water resources or potential environmental problems, depending on lake water quality. Wall rock mineralogy can affect lake chemistry if surface water inputs and/or groundwater inputs and/or lake water in contact with submerged wall rocks react with the wall rock minerals. This. study presents a mineral quantification method to measure the distribution and concentration of wail rock minerals in open pit mines, and applies the method to the Martha epithermal Au-Ag mine. Waihi. New Zealand. Heterogeneous ore deposits, like Martha.. require a large number of wall rock samples to accurately define mineral distributions. X-ray diffraction analyses of 125 wall rock samples identified the most abundant minerals in the wall rocks as quartz, adularia, albite, illite, chlorite, kaolinite, pyrite and calcite. Distribution maps of these minerals defined 8 relatively homogenous areas of wall rock referred to as "mineral associations": weakly-altered, propylitic: fresh-argillic. weathered-argillic, oxidized, potassic, quartz veins, and post-mineralization deposits. X-ray fluorescence. Leco furnace, and neutron activation analyses of 46 representative samples produced the geochemical data-set used to assign quantities of elements to observed minerals, and to calculate average mineral concentrations in each association. Thin-section petrography and calcite concentrations from Sobek acid-digestions confirm the calculated mineralogy, providing validation for the method. Calcite and pyrite concentrations allowed advanced acid-base accounting for each mineral association, identifying 3 potential acid-producing associations and one potential acid-neutralizing association. The results target areas, where detailed hydrologic and kinetic tests would be valuable in the next stage of pit lake evaluation. Detailed understanding of wall rock mineralogy will help strengthen predictions of pit lake water quality. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.