Modernizing Data Collection Within Mining Exploration

Our world has seen massive changes when it comes to technology and data collection. Technology has made it possible to communicate and locate data all from the palm of your hand, in the most remote of places, and in 3D if you choose. However, unlike other core industries, the Canadian mining industry has seemed to fall behind when it comes to modernizing their data infrastructure. 

Unfortunately, what has taken place over time is an unstructured mess of data that does not exist in a central place. Although this has kept the industry alive for the past 30 years, it’s resulted in a very low level of data collection that can cost tens of thousands of dollars to modernize. It’s near impossible to get a whole picture view with the old way of collecting data. The status quo of information being scattered across PDFs has become the baseline of mining data within Canada but stakeholders are wanting a change.

Mineral exploration needs an update, however the sector faces a variety of institutional and technical challenges, which makes the process difficult. Longford, committed to modernization, is able to extract the work from PDFs and take the centralized data into a modern database that contains a consolidated stream readily accessible to clients. With a streamlined approach we can focus on bringing the data forward and actually finding and building mines. 

Major funds interested in a project are keen to see a clean set of data with high level 3D models ensuring that due diligence has been done. If not, you run the risk of investors walking away or discounting the investment, due to what may seem like too big of a job.  

While both Australia and Canada are world leaders within the mining sector, “Canadian Exploration is 30 years behind Australia”, says Luke Van Der Meer, Vice President of Exploration at Longford. The key difference to the Canadian industry being Australia’s efficient and effective ability to push projects forward into the actual mines combined with a high level of data modernization. What does a 30 year advantage look like? It means a higher level of proficiency amongst mid-range geologists, who are generalists rather than specialists. 

Longford Exploration has a history of hiring geologists and explorers from Oceania due to the fact that they are generalized. Rather than hiring multiple specialists, we can have one person come in and look at the whole project with a modern eye view. Combined with a core belief of modernizing data collection and capturing data that is transferable, Longford pushes projects forward in a way that makes sense.