Guest post by Arthur Chan for Mining IQ
As global demand for Australian minerals continues to soar, mining companies face increasing pressure to improve their exploration strategies. Whilst we see GIS and 3D geological modelling techniques playing integral roles in mine management and exploration, experts warn that GIS users in the mining industry will face challenges – particularly with data integration.
Laurent Ailleres, a senior research fellow at the School of Geosciences at Monash University, said that because more data for mining and exploration is getting three-dimensional, he sees data integration as a fundamental challenge for GIS officers and geologists.
“The most important things would be to integrate geological data on different scales… [But] also integrate different kinds of geological data, including geophysical and geochemical data,” said Mr. Ailleres.
This need for the integration of different data sets highlights the classic problem with any technology: that it’s always a step behind its users. Mr. Ailleres says GIS vendors and technicians must keep up to speed with how their end-users utilise the systems.
He added that 3D platforms and 3D GIS need to be more user-friendly for the typical geologist, especially when dealing with spatial data.
“At the moment, we have issues with integrating knowledge within our databases, so anything that is in the geologists’ head is very hard to put into the computer.
“There’s still a separation between geologists to actually understand the rock distributions and technicians to understand the software… This is the missing link which prevents us from making progress in our understanding of [GIS] systems,” Mr. Ailleres said.
He says that the crux of this is that GIS packages are run by technicians who may not necessarily understand its application in mining nor understand the geological use of GIS in the industry.
Mr. Ailleres says the ultimate challenge with spatial data rest upon the geologists and GIS officers as they need to collate all data and integrate them all in one space for analysis.
Laurent Ailleres is a speaker at Mining IQ’s GIS in Mining WA event that’s happening on the 27 – 28 September in Perth.
For more information about this event, please visit www.GISinMining.com.au, call (02) 9229 1000 or email enquire@iqpc.com.au.
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