Geophysics and Geological Modelling
Maximizing discovery in a mature jurisdiction
Traditionally there has been a certain mystique that goes with a classical boots on the ground reconnaissance of a property. However, in an era where there is pressure to make discoveries faster, and with fewer geologists available to make them, it is a huge benefit that new sensor technologies are coming online to augment and expedite the exploration process. One might assume that the further a sensor is from the ore source, the less likely it is to provide a detailed visualization and geological interpretation, but Expert Geophysics has developed a suite of sensors that defy this. The company’s flagship MobileMT (Mobile MagnetoTellurics) system works by exploiting passive electromagnetic fields arising from lightning events and storm activity that cause variations in the earth's magnetic field. It possesses several advantages over existing airborne electromagnetic technologies, and compared to active source airborne electromagnetic technologies, MobileMT has much greater depth of investigation. Expert Geophysics founder and president, Andrei Bagrianski, points out: “Most of the near surface deposits have been discovered by now, and many companies are looking for deeper targets. That is where our technology is most helpful.”
Compared to other commercially available AFMAG airborne systems that measure just one component of magnetic variations in the air, Expert Geophysics is able to measure three, which means it can recover the geology of any shape. The technology has also been proven to work in detecting many different commodities. “The fact that the system is versatile and applicable in such a wide range of topographic, geographic and geologic conditions means that if an electromagnetic survey is suitable for your mining and exploration objectives, the MobileMT system can most likely deliver the results you are looking for,” Bagrianski affirmed.
Expert Geophysics does not stop at providing customers with raw data alone. The company also delivers the interpretation while working closely with geologists to help them better understand what the data means.
According to Daniel McKinnon, President and CEO of MPX Geophysics, a company that offers advanced modern airborne technologies on fixed and rotary wing platforms, as well as drones, one of the historical drawbacks that geophysics has had is that geologists are ill-trained to process and interpret the data resulting from geophysical acquisition. For this reason, those who assumed the role were mathematicians or physicists, with minimal knowledge of geology. “Today, in order to carry out processing, and especially interpretation, there has to be teamwork between physicists, geophysicists and geologists who understand the geological model of the area from which the acquisition is being made,” McKinnon suggested, adding that MPX employs a team that provides clients with real and adjusted geological information of the surveyed area.
McKinnon has seen remarkable advances in the sensitivity and resolution of the sensors on board his fleet of aircraft. Depth of investigation, interpretability of the airborne geophysical data, system power, noise reduction, and target detectability have all markedly improved. “Modern systems now allow for three-dimensional subsurface modeling, which is a huge advance compared with older systems where targets at depth were often not well defined. These same targets can now be both detected and better displayed for strategic interpretation,” McKinnon said.
While there is undoubtedly a strong push toward identifying deeper targets, Mandy Long, general manager of SkyTEM Canada Inc., points out that over the past few years there has been something of a trend in Ontario with clients seeking a clear picture of their near surface geology. “Traditionally, groups were all looking at depth, and the philosophy was to go as deep as you can and find as much as you can. We have now seen a shift back towards understanding what is going on in the near surface in Ontario,” Long commented.
“With ground geophysics, you get good productivity and higher definition as you are closer to the buried target and on a more stable platform which gives the maximum in survey resolution.”
Greg Hollyer, SVP Business, Communications and Geophysics, Simcoe Geoscience Limited
M&A Drives Product Improvements
In reckoning with the build versus buy dilemma, in 2021 Xcalibur Multiphysics, formerly a leading player in magnetics and radiometrics and typically specialized in doing larger scale country mapping programs in Africa, decided to diversify and expand its business with the acquisition of CGG Multiphysics. This added CGG’s expertise in gravity gradiometry and electromagnetics, and instantly helped Xcalibur grow its market presence in the Americas, Australia and Asia.
A manifestation of this merger will occur in 2023, when Xcalibur’s XMAG system is introduced into the Canadian market. XMAG is a magnetic and radiometric system that utilizes a fixed-wing aircraft to deliver ultra-high resolution data, with a quick turnaround time. In fact, it is flown on a crop-dusting aircraft designed specifically to fly at ultra-low levels. “In Africa, we are flying low level surveys with very tight line spacing, which gives customers an extremely detailed, data rich solution. We are going to be exporting that technology around the world, and Canada is a key place to receive it,” noted Davin Allen, managing director – Canada at Xcalibur. With the acquisition of CGG, Xcalibur will now offer an existing technology that was formerly part of CGG called TEMPEST, which is a fixed-wing time-domain system that originated in Australia. “Prior to the sale, CGG did not want to invest heavily in capital expenditure on this offering. However, now that we have been integrated into Xcalibur, the board have been very forward thinking, and they are investing a significant amount of money, time and energy to focus on broadening our solutions,” Allen elaborated.
The sense of urgency from top management comes as a result of the pressing need to meet exponentially rising mineral demand while mitigating environmental disturbance. Xcalibur’s CEO, Andrés Blanco, underscored this dilemma, explaining that Xcalibur’s vision is to support the fast mapping of energy transition minerals in Ontario. Consequently, the company is investing US$40 million in R&D for acquisition technologies, as well as technologies that apply machine learning techniques in the interpretation of the data. “These technologies are important because, when there is compelling evidence of mineralization, exploration efforts can focus more precisely on defined areas. This maximizes the probability that drill campaigns will succeed and minimizes environmental disturbance,” Blanco affirmed.
Innovation on the Ground
Despite the popularity of airborne surveying, ground surveys remain an important component of exploration. Ground geophysics attains good productivity and often higher definition when applied closer to the buried target. It provides a more stable platform that can maximize survey resolution. In an effort to develop a ground surveying technology that was repeatable, deep, and high definition, Simcoe Geoscience developed a proprietary wireless technology called Alpha IP, which, in addition to operational advantages in the field, also delivers the desired level of definition and depth with the added benefit of eliminating electromagnetic coupling (effects which degrade the quality of standard wired survey data – especially near surface). The technology requires no line cutting, and is a great benefit for explorers in forested and swampy areas.
“There is a feeling that we have discovered a lot of the easier to find deposits at surface, and therefore there is a need to look deeper and under cover. In these instances we must rely heavily on geophysics.”
Elisabeth Ronacher, Co-founder and Principal Geologist, Ronacher Mckenzie Geoscience
New Technology Increases Conviction
Technoimaging is a University of Utah spinout that has developed a system that integrates all kinds of geophysical data to create a 3D imaging solution. It transforms datasets into geologically meaningful models via 3D images, which are referred to as Glass Earth models. This technology allows the company to deliver a transparent model of the subsurface, where a geologist can see the earth's internal structure expressed in different physical properties like conductivity, density, seismic velocity, and magnetic properties.
TechnoImaging founder and CEO, Michael Zhdanov, highlights that the industry’s use of historical geophysical maps is often called ‘bump hunting’. For example, people look at magnetic maps, see some anomalies, and go after them. “Very often, however, there are ‘bumps’ on the map, but they have nothing to do with real discovery in the ground. With our technology, we transform these maps into very high-resolution 3D images of the different physical properties of the rocks underground. Then, by integrating different properties, we can conclude with higher confidence whether there is a mineral deposit or not,” Zhdanov said.
“It costs millions of dollars to just to get to the orebody and any ore left there dilutes profits. That is why people originally came to us to put our scanner on a drone to fly in the stope.”
Syed Naeem Ahmed, President, Clickmox Solutions
New Hardware and Deep Learning Enables Improved Models
Sudbury-based Clickmox Solutions began to develop its current suite of LiDAR products after working with a 3D laser mobile mapping system at Rio Tinto’s Grasburg mine in Indonesia. However, its third party system was too heavy to mount on a drone, and clients were requesting they fly drones with scanning capability in the underground mines. The reason was that stopes are unsupported, making it unsafe to send people in there. The company needed to develop a lighter and smaller LiDAR with mobile scanning capability, and ultimately did. In describing the impact that this technology can have on a mines’ bottom line, Syed Naeem Ahmed, president of Clickmox Solutions, explained: “Geologists can model the ore flow. However, once some of the ore has been taken out, it is difficult to know how much is left. Unless you get a full 3D profile you cannot get a clear picture of the excavation.”
Another founder-led technology company hoping to help mining companies maximize production is StratumAI, which leverages deep learning to create more accurate resource models using the data a mine already has generated. Traditionally, mines drill out long cores of rock for analysis, then assay each sample to determine the content. This is done repeatedly using a predetermined spacing/orientation decided by each company. Geologists use that drill data, their experience, and industry-standard geostatistics to fill in the blanks between the drill holes to create a 3D map of the mineral content in the ground. Stratum uses that same data to create a more comprehensive 3D map that better represents the mineral content in the ground, and it does that by applying its own algorithms. “Even though data is sparse, it implicitly carries the geological patterns of the system and, therefore, can be used as is to extract the geological patterns of the system. It just requires a lot of work on the machine learning side to be able to ingest the data and extract something logical. From there, the next challenge was to deliver an outcome that is much more accurate than the best resource model created by the mining operation,” said Farzi Yusufali, co-founder of StratumAI.
Freed from the Mundane
After winning the Disrupt Mining competition in 2017, KORE Geosystems Inc. received a C$1 million investment from Goldcorp, giving it the capital it needed to develop its technology specialized in extracting value from data to solve specific industry problems. KORE’s flagship SPECTOR system started when one of its first data scientists was granted access to a dataset from a gold mining company, and his team proved that the technology could predict the rock type from the imagery using deep learning models. The company’s choice to focus primarily on the core logging process may seem mundane. However, almost every single exploration and mining site drills core, and there are labor-intensive tasks associated with this process that can be automated. “It is a big market, and a lot of the major mining companies are drilling hundreds of thousands of meters a year at a single mine site. Because the drilling volume is large, there is a lot of labor-intensive work required. We felt there was a market to make things more consistent, faster, and efficient,” said Vince Gerrie, president of KORE Geosystems Inc.
Article header image courtesy of MPX Geophysics