Igniting discovery.
Thinking outside the box and encouraging the uptake of data science are just some of the rewards from hosting South Australia’s global international challenge, Explore SA: The Gawler Challenge.
At a live-streamed event to announce the winners mid September, teams from across the globe shared in a $250,000 prize pool aimed at unlocking the mineral potential of South Australia’s resource-rich Gawler Craton.
ExploreSA: The Gawler Challenge winners and submission data releases are available to view on SARIG.
The competition attracted 2,200 participants from 100 countries in the five-month quest to interrogate new and historical open file data curated by the Geological Survey of South Australia (GSSA) to identify or predict areas of potential mineralisation.
Executive Director of Mineral Resources, Alex Blood, told the global audience, ‘We wanted to extract the best high quality data, and it has been really valuable to see how people push through a wide range of data, applying and combining traditional and new approaches.
‘Explore SA: the Gawler Challenge has activated skills from all over the globe, and the intensity of the competition has brought focus and energy and fresh eyes over five short months.
‘Encouraging geologists and data scientists to work together on solving challenges has produced new workflows and approaches we haven’t seen before, showing the opportunity to integrate more tools to complement geoscience.
‘We’ve seen how this competition can speed the uptake of methods, the crunching of data, bringing in machine learning and application of mathematical approaches that geologists can use with their exploration teams.
‘We have the makings of a new marketplace connecting innovators to explorers, supporting the small enterprise sector to enhance and take up commercial opportunities.’
More than a machine learning exercise, Alex said running the competition from the GSSA’s perspective highlighted the importance of a data-first approach, in order to present, manage and properly process large volumes of data.
‘Drilling is expensive and the endgame is efficiency and having the greatest chance of making a discovery.’
Echoing this sentiment, Richard Scott, Data Scientist with OZ Minerals, highlighted the opportunity to get through information faster. ‘We can access data science tools to handle mundane data crunching, speed up workflow and mine datasets in ways not possible to do quickly, and find new things you didn’t know about.’
Minister for Energy and Mining, Dan van Holst Pellekaan, acknowledged all the entrants for their outstanding efforts.
‘We are a high-technology state and open for mineral exploration.
‘With what the competition has achieved, we will realise opportunities faster and speed up investment decisions.’
Team Per-OZ, short for Peru-Australia, took out the winning submission in the Gawler Challenge for their innovative entry titled ‘Mantle to mine: precision drill targeting integrating a mineral systems approach with machine learning and geomechanical modelling of deformation and associated fluid flow’.
‘The judging panel chose the solution presented by Per-OZ as the best overall submission due to their unique methodology which could help geologists in the field find that needle in the haystack,’ Minister van Holst Pellekaan said.
The duo – Dr Paul Pearson from Latin Global and Dr John McLellan from GNEX – both specialise in structural geology, prospectivity analysis, data science, machine learning and modelling.
The pair are accustomed to dealing with lots of datasets and acknowledged the GSSA’s datasets as outstanding, enabling them to take data extraction to a whole new level.
Asked for his view on tackling data and exploration, Dr Pearson said, ‘Understand the problem in all of its depth – dealing with complex systems and all processes from the mantle to the ore deposit. Look at all sets of information available to see what value can be extracted, but understand the geological context to integrate data. Persist, don’t be discouraged and keep it geologically grounded and draw on all the toolboxes.’
Runner up, Michael Rodda from Caldera Analytics agreed. ‘There is no substitute for understanding the geology and curating the data.’
Buoyed by the success of the competition, the state government will invest a further $5 million from the Economic and Business Growth Fund. The GSSA will leverage results from the challenge to support the next generation mineral systems mapping and intends to partner with participants to further investigate results tabled in submissions to develop and test new models, ideas and exploration targets, further driving investment to the region.
Winners
Best overall submission
Per-OZ for effectively integrating mineral systems and geomechanics with appropriate machine learning techniques ($100,000).
Runner up
Caldera Analytics for the way they made use of negative drillholes as training data, alongside applying gravity data ($20,000).
Student prize
Sparveon ($15,000).
Undercover award
DeMist for bringing the best approach to finding deposits undercover ($15,000).
Rock licker award
Jack Maughan for the best use of geochemistry or mineralogy ($15,000).
Future data award
Sam Bost for his work in enhancing the capacity to do more with future data collection ($15,000).
Breaking new ground award
Avant Data Solutions for the best approach to generating targets in under-explored areas ($15,000).
Data preparation and cleaning awards
These awards were announced earlier in the year, establishing the competition's foundation – Lian Chen, Jack Maughan, Michael Rodda and Russell Menezes.
Jack Maughan, recipient of the ‘Rock licker award’ for the best use of geochemistry or mineralogy.
Submissions and datasets
Full details of the winning submissions and finalists are available to view on the South Australian Resources Information Gateway (SARIG) including reports, analysis and video links where the winners explain the rationale behind their targets and their approach to the challenge.
To access downloads use the identify tool and select a team on the map to view competition results and data links.
A live stream recording of the Awards presentation will be available from the Unearthed website.
– Grace Taylor, October 2020
