W-8: Quo Vadis Interpretation in Mining Geophysics?

SEG 2012 Annual Meeting Technical Program
 

Date: Thursday, 8 November 2012
Time: 1:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Location: Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Room: Breakers D
Organizers: Mark Shore and Ken Witherly   
Through the support of the SEG Mining Committee
 

Description
 

The last 20 years have seen a shift in mining geophysics away from the situation where a majority of geophysicists worked for major mining companies to one in which a majority now work for service groups.

One consequence of this change is that there are fewer geophysicists who are engaged in interpretation as their major task. While consultants are primarily focused on interpretation, this part of the business is largely populated by older professionals and their numbers are static or even declining as people retire and fewer people show an interest in working in this part of the profession.

The last 20 years have also seen an explosion of new processing techniques for virtually every type of data acquired during minerals exploration. While much of this processing had to be performed as a ‘custom' task, often by the person who was to do the final interpretation, the ease of even complex processing has advanced with new software developments and the rise of custom processing services.

The end result of the two developments outlined above is that there is a far larger amount of high quality primary and modeled data to be assessed as the part of most exploration projects by fewer people. Unfortunately, little focus has been given to work flows to allow for the greater throughput of data and processing on projects so the interpreter can achieve more in the same amount of time.

The workshop will review the current state of play regarding interpretation and canvas leaders within the industry to see what this development means for them and their organizations. Representatives from mining companies, service groups and academia will be polled to see anything can be undertaken to improve a situation that if left unchecked, will have a significant impact on the sustainability of the minerals exploration geophysicist.