The program was developed with data from Goldcorp's Red Lake mine, pictured, where IBM Watson has been in use for almost two years. Courtesy of Goldcorp
Goldcorp and IBM Canada have partnered up to create an artificial intelligence product that they say will improve predictability for gold mineralization.
The platform, known as IBM Exploration with Watson, uses spatial analytics, machine learning and predictive models to help geologists find key information and develop geological extrapolations faster than traditional methods.
"Timelines are short in mining and exploration. I am excited to see the improvements we can make with the data platform and gold mineralization predictions," Maura Kolb, Goldcorp's exploration manager at Red Lake, said in a statement.
The program was developed with data from Goldcorp's Red Lake mine, where IBM Watson has been in use for almost two years.
IBM Canada and Goldcorp announced at PDAC 2017 that Watson would analyze 80 years’ worth of data at Red Lake to help geologists determine areas worthy of further exploration work. Earlier this year, Goldcorp told CIM Magazine that processing data had become 97 per cent more efficient with the use of the Watson cognitive technology.
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IBM Exploration with Watson has reviewed Red Lake geologists’ drill targets and suggested targets based on its own data analysis. Its targets are currently being drilled and the first one has yielded “the predicted mineralization at the expected depth,” Goldcorp said.
"These tools can help us view data in totally new ways. We have already begun to test the Watson targets from the predictive model through drilling, and results have been impressive so far," said Kolb.
IBM Exploration with Watson is an adaptation of the Watson technology for a mining-specific context. “IBM Watson has been used across the industrial sector globally, [but] this is the first time this made-in-Canada solution – IBM Exploration with Watson – has ever been used anywhere,” said IBM Canada spokesperson Lorraine Baldwin in an email.
Goldcorp said it plans to use the technology on other projects in 2019.
