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Downhole geophysics data can provide proxies for mineralogy in near real time both in exploration and production environments.

Understanding mineralogy is essential for profitable mining, particularly as projects are exploiting more complex orebodies with lower-grade ore, often located deeper/less accessible and with significant deleterious elements. Battery metals and rare earths especially depend on detailed knowledge of mineralogy, as many projects are exploring what was essentially considered waste only a decade ago.

Conventional methods for mapping mineralogy are heavily focused on lab assays and core analysis. However, the processing queues are often weeks or months, which can dramatically slow both the exploration and production phases of a project.

Downhole geophysics data is widely acquired in exploration environments around the world. Measurements vary by deposit/application, including televiewer images, gamma, conductivity/resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, density, neutron porosity, NMR, sonic, elemental spectroscopy, induced polarisation, radar imaging, calipers, drilling dynamics, directionality, and flow meters.

Drillhole geophysics data is typically acquired: Wireline, Wireline Memory, In-Rod, MWD/LWD and Application. Geophysics measurements do not directly measure mineralogy, but rather measure attributes of the rock which act as proxies for mineralogy. Due t this it is important to consider the trade-off between having precise mineral mapping from lab data but at sparse intervals and lower precision geophysics-based mineralogy at high spatial density.

Geophysical logs can be used to determine mineralogy, shortening the time between exploration and production. It is effective at several levels, from orebody mapping to more precise mineralisation proxies. Modern platforms allow for near-real time data acquisition, which makes it practical to update the 3D mine models “on the fly” near drilling time.