Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (BGM) is focused on developing its extensive mineral rights package located in the historical Cariboo Mining District of central British Columbia. BGM’s Cariboo Gold Project mineral tenure covers 2,039 square kilometres, along a strike length of 67 kilometres; this area includes several past-producing placer and hard rock mines, making it one of the most well-endowed land packages in British Columbia.

The current infill drilling programme, which is adding confidence to BGM’s vein-hosted gold deposit, has been running for the last three years and the project is continuing into 2019. The team of geologists is aiming to hit mineralised vein planes to move the resource up to inferred and subsequently indicated status.

The size of the project has grown significantly over the last two years, producing a huge amount of drilling data. To help manage this geological data more effectively BGM has turned to Seequent’s Central solution.

The Situation

For Natalie Cook, a project geologist in the exploration department, the introduction of Central has transformed the way the team works. “We had already been using Leapfrog Geo to create our geological models, but as a team it was the management of these projects that was the challenge. Previously, we had all our projects stored on our server. People would download these projects, work locally, then upload their updated projects back to the server. We quickly ended up with old versions and multiple versions of the same model, which made data management a challenge.”

The solution

Central has been implemented on the infill programme and has streamlined the process of data collection and version control. Central is the model management solution that helps geologists visualise, track and manage their geological data from a centralised, auditable environment. It is ideal for teams such as BGM to coordinate and accurately preserve their complex geological data. “Now the project managers can publish their model and planned drillhole updates directly to Central. The geologists in the core shacks can download the latest version of the project and publish their daily findings back to Central. Project managers can track the progress of logging and its impact on the geological model in almost real-time and determine much more accurately whether the targets for the drilling campaign are met.”

The Benefits

“With Central, there are the obvious benefits such as saving time and working more efficiently as you are just downloading one project, knowing it contains the most current data. In addition, we have really seen a transformation in how the team is working together. The geologists are more empowered to keep a constant track of the drilling progress and suggest new ideas to the project managers.

Now that we have Central, the geologists are looking at the model every day and are making sure their drillholes are on target. Some of them are now even doing their own modelling based on what they have seen in the core, with data that wasn’t as easily accessible before Central. It is the immediacy of being able to see the data and act in the moment, which encourages the geologists to spend more time interpreting the data than before” says Natalie.

As the project has grown, the project managers are seeing the benefit of having more input from the team towards improving drilling efficiency. Central offers the team a different perspective regarding the model development and allows for active collaboration in the drillhole planning effort.

“There are now up to ten people working on the same data every day, but because there is only one Central platform, everything is managed in one place with all changes tracked, ensuring only one version of the model is worked on.”

NATALIE COOK, PROJECT GEOLOGIST

The Outlook

Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. sees Central, plus Leapfrog Geo and EDGE, as fundamental technology for creating a more efficient organisation and facilitating cultural transformations. The new generation of geologists entering the workforce must be comfortable with the latest technology, so BGM ensures that all their new hires go through the Leapfrog Fundamentals training.

Central solves the challenges of a team being geographically spread between on-site and in the head office. All personnel can visualise and utilise the same data and interpretations, no matter where they are. The exploration team sees the 3D visualisation capability of Leapfrog as essential for all future decisions around resource programmes.