Telling the world where to find your gold may seem anathema to many old-school prospectors, but that’s exactly what Integra Gold chair George Salamis told a packed room of geologists, prospectors and investors to do.
After all, he’s done it himself. Salamis spoke at the 2017 Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference in Toronto this week. The conference brings together prospectors, mining companies, industry leaders and potential investors every year with an eye to new trends and developments in the mineral exploration world.
In 2015 Integra Gold open-sourced the data on its Lamaque project in Val-d’Or, Que. The project has nearly 900,000 ounces of high-grade gold indicated and another 1 million ounces inferred across six deposits.
As payoff for opening up its data, Integra got an artificially intelligent virtual reality model of its resources. As more data is collected and plowed into the model, the database learns from itself and creates increasingly accurate new models of the underground gold deposits.
It’s all part of a much-needed digital revolution in mining, Salamis said, a disruption that many other industries are already in. The mineral exploration industry is “one of the most backward-thinking industries on the planet,” when it comes to digital innovation Salamis said.
For the rest of this article, click here: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/03/07/digital-disruption-rocks-the-mining-world.html