Petrophysics for Mineral Discovery during Drilling – Phase 2: MinEx CRC Project 4

The Challenge

Drilling can provide physical samples of rock hidden deep beneath the surface, allowing geologists to define and test potentially mineralised features, but it can take many holes for an explorer to develop enough understanding of the buried geology and structures to properly define and test their targets.

Proposed Solution

This project seeks to improve geophysical technologies for characterising sub-surface geology, and to incorporate these sensors into a mineral exploration drilling system. This sensing package will deliver a capability for drillers to resolve key characteristics of the geological environment during the process of drilling, allowing for near-real-time adaptation of drilling programs in response to the conditions encountered.

Proposed Benefits to WA

By improving the accuracy of drill targeting and the quality of information returned from individual drillholes, this technology could reduce the amount of drilling required to identify and define buried mineralisation. In addition to making it cheaper and easier to explore across the widespread covered areas of WA, this improved drilling efficiency would reduce the environmental impacts of mineral exploration in remote and sometimes sensitive areas of the State.

Keywords: Mineral exploration; geophysics; drilling; exploration drilling