| Project Detail |
Earth Observation technologies for mineral exploration and mine site monitoring
Earth Observation (EO) data can aid mineral exploration and mining activities. The EU-funded MultiMiner project will develop innovative data processing algorithms based on machine learning for cost-effective utilisation of EO technologies for mineral exploration and mine site monitoring. In this way, it will unlock the potential of EO data, including Copernicus, commercial satellites, upcoming missions, airborne and low altitude, and in situ data. The project will focus on novel EO-based exploration technologies for critical raw materials to increase the probability of finding new sources within the EU thus reinforcing its autonomy in the raw materials sector. MultiMiner will create generic but highly innovative machine learning solutions with extremely low environmental impact to support the entire mining life cycle.
The Multi-source and Multi-scale Earth observation and Novel Machine Learning Methods for Mineral Exploration and Mine Site Monitoring (MultiMiner) project develops novel data processing algorithms for cost-effective utilization of Earth Observation (EO) technologies for mineral exploration and mine site monitoring. MultiMiner unlocks the potential of EO data, including Copernicus, commercial satellites, upcoming missions, airborne and low altitude as well as in situ data, to support the entire mining life cycle including mineral exploration, operational, closure and post-closure stages. This is achieved by creating generic but highly innovative machine learning solutions which do not require any or only little ground truth data. The project focuses on new EO based exploration technologies for critical raw materials (CRM) to increase the probability of finding new sources within EU thereby strengthening the EU autonomy in the area of raw materials. MultiMiner EO based exploration solutions have extremely low environmental impact, and are thus socially acceptable, economically efficient and improve safety. The project’s solutions for mine site monitoring increase the transparency of mining operations as environmental impacts can be detected as early as possible and digital information of the currently unexploitable raw materials can be stored for future generations. The applicability of the developed algorithms is demonstrated in 4 European test sites. MultiMiner is a pan-European consortium consisting of 12 partners and 1 associated partner from research institutes, academia, consulting businesses and mining industry with interdisciplinary backgrounds in geology, remote sensing and machine learning. The members come from six EU member states which represent mining regions across Europe with diverse geology with evident potential for various types of CRM resources and thousands of operational and closed mines. |
