ABSTRACT
In the USA assessment focus has broadened from deposits of metals, to industrial minerals, and recently to the consideration of aggregate. Development of descriptive models will be an important future activity in aggregate modeling and will likely be based on geomorphology, bedrock features, and sedimentary forms. Systematic classification and associated descriptive models of aggregate deposit types are needed before a better quantitative assessment can be made. Grade and tonnage models provide distributions of grades and tonnages of mineral deposits grouped using descriptive models. Some industrial minerals and all aggregates are sensitive to proximity to markets, and availability of transportation. A number of characteristics are important to suppliers and users and therefore need to be quantitatively modeled. Broadly, they include: Deposit size and geometry, Grain size distribution, and Physical and chemical characteristics. Within each aggregate production-consumption domain, is a circular system driven by internal aggregate ‘consumption’.
