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Seequent CentralThe Data Management Challenge

Best practices for managing geological data

By March 10, 2019March 23rd, 2022No Comments

This story features in The data Management Challange

Seequent continues to collaborate with industry leaders to help overcome data management issues. Central has been evolving now for some years and mining companies have already adopted it, not just as a means of data management efficiency, but also as a way of using innovation to continue to build competitive advantage.

Seequent has identified five practices mining companies could adopt to better manage their geological data, which Central already supports.

What’s really important to us as a company is allowing geologists to think more about the geology and less about the software. We have promoted this for a long time. Think geology first and software second.

  1. 3D: Mining by nature is a 3D problem. Spatially located data needs to be stored in such a way that it can be easily visualised in a 3D context alongside other data.
  2. PERSISTENCE: Mining projects operate for many years, and data and knowledge are cumulatively built over time. It is said that an exploration project is owned on average by three companies before it progresses to a mine, making it even more critical that centralised data management should persist over the life of a project and capture all data and decisions made.
  3. VERSION CONTROL: Version control should be at the heart of the system. This is particularly important where data collection and model iteration is ongoing. Geologists need to be confident that data and model revisions are securely preserved at points in time, that updating does not damage prior versions and that it is possible to return to an earlier version if necessary. Version control also provides an audit trail and ensures that all producers and consumers of the model can be confident that they are working from the correct version.
  4. COLLABORATIVE: Increasingly, mining and exploration projects are large and complex and require team-based effort. The organisation and structure of data storage should allow and enable all users to access and work with the information.
  5. CENTRALISED, ACCESSIBLE AND SECURE: Teams working on projects are often geographically spread, so location should be no barrier to access or contribution. Cloud hosting can ensure this, as well as provide assurance of security. If connectivity is a challenge in the sharing of large models then Central provides a solution by being capable of uploading the incremental changes and still providing universal access to the complete up-to-date model. By uploading megabytes rather than gigabytes, you will save time and lots of server space.