Laboratory Survey

The widely renowned Geostats Round Robin of Laboratories continues to provide valuable information to both Mining Houses and the Analytical Industry. These surveys commenced in 1992 and have grown to be an important benchmark for both these industries.

The Mining Houses are given information on the availability of services with an overview of laboratory capabilities, while the analysts are able to assess their situation in relation to other facilities. Many laboratories use the report as an integral part of their ongoing quality control strategy.

The survey is performed twice yearly, in April and October and at present involves over one hundred laboratories from all parts of the world.

Depending on their capabilities the laboratories receive all or some of the following prepared samples for analyses:

   Ten, 60 gram samples for gold determination by fire assay.
   Ten, 40 gram samples for gold determination by aqua regia.
   Five, 60 gram samples for low level gold analyses (<100 ppb levels).
   Two, 10 gram barren carbons for gold/silver assay.
   Two, 10 gram loaded carbons for gold/silver assay.

   Ten, 20 gram samples for base metal (geochemical levels) and silver analyses including:
        Copper, Lead, Zinc, Nickel, Arsenic, Cobalt and Silver.

   Six, 20 gram samples for base metal (ore grade levels) analyses including:
        Copper, Lead, Zinc and Nickel.

   Ten, 10 gram samples for sulphur analyses.

Neutron Activation (gold +32 elements) results for all samples used in the survey are presented in the report. These are performed at Becquerel Laboratories in Sydney, Australia.

The results of these surveys are compiled and charted showing overall error and overall bias. This is done by standardising the individual analyses and averaging performance on each element. Outlier assays are identified using population statistics and removed from final averages and standard deviations.

The resulting reports are a good window on performance and capabilities at the various facilities.

A Microsoft Power Point presentation is available here. This describes the Geostats Round Robin program and the report generated. The presentation requires Power Point (or viewer available here).

Costs

The commercial laboratories pay nothing to be included in the survey as long as they are willing to have their results included in the final report to the Mining Houses. In exchange they receive an edited report identifying only their laboratory or group of laboratories.

The Mining Houses pay a flat fee to receive the full report identifying all the commercial laboratories willing to participate. They can also nominate any of their in-house laboratories to become part of the survey at no extra charge. These laboratories are only identified to the parent company sponsoring the survey. We have several major mining groups with multiple laboratories participating in the survey at present.

The Geostats Round Robin of Laboratories is a good addition to overall quality control systems for both mining houses, as the clients, and laboratories, as the service providers.

All certified reference materials used in the Laboratory Survey are available for purchase from Geostats at reasonable prices and can be dispatched to anywhere in the world within ten working days.

For further information on the costs of receiving the full report please feel free to email us.

The laboratories which participated in the latest survey are listed here.