Mining Companies Using AI, Machine Learning And Robots
It was just a few years ago when Artificial Intelligence (Ai) was a newly emerged idea that was too technically advanced for people to predict how it could impact the world. Fast forward to 2019 and things have definitely changed. It’s become a real game changer for countless industries including major players in the Machine Learning in Mining.
Mining is an industry where improving efficiency and productivity is essential for profitability, as small improvements in yields, speed and efficiency can make an extraordinary impact.
The mining industry employs a lot of individuals — just 670,000 Americans are employed in the quarrying, mining and extraction sector. Our current methods are just not effective and can result in a lot of loss which is detrimental since mining can impact nearly every other industry since it provides the raw materials for virtually every other aspect of the economy.
Mineral exploration
The current mineral exploration process is basically massive amounts of data in the form of soil samples, chip samples, geochemistry, drill results, and assay results. Each drill hole is a tiny snapshot of the processes that form the earth.
A single drill hole can create 200 megabytes of data and if there are more drill holes with other types of information, an exploration project can produce terabytes of data. If you wanted to compare your one project to hundreds of others to find the best insights, this becomes difficult since the amount of data is crazy.
All of these data points are so important though because using this data we can find new mineral deposits, but to sort through them is too much for even an entire team of capable geologists.
Using Machine Learning, we can train computers to spot the areas showing similar patterns to past discoveries.
HOW DOES IT WORK HERE
EARTH AI is helping mineral explorers identify promising areas. They do this by analyzing data from multiple sources and using a machine learning algorithm to identify areas where minerals are likely to be found. 47 layers of remote sensing and geophysical data are analyzed at once by machine learning — they can highlight ore bodies and alteration haloes as well as map out hard rocks and regolith with extreme detail.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning can help mining companies find minerals to extract. Some companies are already working on this. Goldspot Discoveries Inc. is a company that aims to make finding gold more of a science than art by using machine learning. Another company, Goldcorp and IBM Watson are collaborating to use artificial intelligence to review all the geological info available to find better drilling locations for gold in Canada.
