Geosoft - Exploring With Data

Survey reveals serious concerns about managing exploration data

Having problems managing your exploration data? You’re not alone. In a recent survey conducted by Geosoft, four out of five respondents identified data management as a critical or top five priority. The survey polled managers of companies and government organizations who gathered data for mineral exploration but didn’t use Geosoft solutions to manage it. You can download the survey from our website. 

The aggravation had multiple causes, from reformatting headaches to trouble accessing data from other exploration sites. But ineffective search tools and a heavy dependency on knowledge experts were the two most common challenges cited by the 35 global executives (56%), geoscientists (25%) and IT or GIS experts (19%) who responded to our survey.

It’s not as though explorers don’t see the value of making their data more useful and accessible. More than half acknowledged that they would increase their reporting transparency and visibility to investors and 21% expected cost savings. 

So what are the barriers to improvement? Almost half of the respondents said the cost of maintaining a data management system is the biggest deterrent. But making sure there is someone to manage the system appears to be just as significant: 27% said they lacked the expertise to operate the system, while 21% were concerned about the availability of a data manager. 

Potential solutions fell into two main camps: acquiring a single commercially available platform and building an in-house system. Not one respondent said they would consider outsourcing their geoscientific information, even though outsourced services are available, and this practice has been used in other industries such as oil and gas for years.

We made some interesting observations as a result of the survey. The most significant is that centralized data management appears to be an emerging trend. Another key finding is that although a majority of geoscientists spend more than 30% of their time looking for, accessing, cleaning or preparing their data, half of the respondents weren’t concerned about this major time drain. The volume and quality of data was not highlighted as a big issue, but data duplication was: 42% didn’t feel confident their company had a good handle on it.

Our survey author, Steve Randall, sums up why explorers find data management so challenging. “Like most of us, they are focused on the short term, managing the project they are currently working on,” he says. “But as soon as the project slips back in the priority and then needs to be picked back up or if there are multiple users, the complexity increases and the effort to try and access the required data as quickly as possible becomes an ever increasing challenge.” 

Direct Gridding

New in Oasis montaj 7.3 and Target 7.3, and a fast and useful gridding algorithm: Direct Gridding.

Direct Gridding can be used to create a grid from highly sampled data without using any interpolation.  You can use the minumum, maximum, or mean value in the cell.  It is also a great way to make a grid from regularly sampled data. I used this to grid global topography from a large XYZ file.

Replot Holes on Existing Plan or Section

One of my colleagues recently told me that she talks to a number of Target and Drillhole users who are not aware of, or have forgotten about, a really useful option to "Replot Holes on Existing Plan or Section".

The Replot Holes option has fewer parameters than the standard Plan and Section tools.  It only updates the drillhole groups and does not overwrite or create a new map. This makes it useful for tasks such as adding proposed holes that were added to the project or updating the data being plotted along the trace when new logs or lab results are ready.

3D View Orientation Buttons

New in 7.3 - quick 3D view orientation buttons in the 3D Viewer

Use these buttons to quickly view the 3D model from a cardinal direction, above or below, OR set your own inclination and declination viewing angle.

Reprojecting database coordinates with a script

Today I came across a Geosoft Knowledge Base article called How to reproject the X,Y coordinates in a database.  This is a handy little reference, as I used to do this task (or show others how to do this) on a regular basis. 

On one project, I set up a little script to do it for me. It was simple to create (learn more about scripting in this video!), saved time, and prevented the possibility of making small but costly errors if I were to do it manually each day.

Five Best Practices for Handling the Data Explosion

First there were megabytes, then gigabytes, and now terabytes, and petabytes. “A petabyte is the equivalent of a stack of DVDs stretching from here to the moon.” -- GigaOM Network and they are coming to an exploration office near you. Geosoft has five suggestions for best practices to help you handle the data explosion and improve exploration data management.

Where to start?

1. Clear the clutter. Identify which applications and formats are essential for your business and cull the rest. 
2. Find your coordinates. Ensure geographic coordinates are accurately recorded in the field, and managed as part of the data.
3. Use classifications. Using classifications, such as continent, country, state/region, project name, and data type to organize the data, makes the discovery of data more efficient.
4. Add descriptors. Establish and maintain a standard set of minimum required metadata fields for every dataset.
5. Make it flow. Streamline your workflows to move the data through the system from collection to collaboration and ensure that all users know where to find existing data and where to put new data.

You can read more on this topic in the latest issue of Earth Explorer – Handling the Data Explosion.   

What's New 2011 - 3D clipping

The Geosoft 2011 Update is now available. Look forward to a few new articles here about some of our favourite new features and functions.

Today's tip: In Oasis montaj, Target, and Extensions for ArcGIS, you can now use the 3D view clipping tools to clip all 3D object types, including: drillholes, symbols, grids and surfaces. You can also select and clip multiple groups at once.

How do I use the Mask channel in a drillhole project?

When you import your data into a Target project, you will notice that all of the output Geosoft databases (*.gdb files), except for the survey database have a Mask channel.

A Mask channel generally holds binary data and is usually of data type byte.  Mask channels will either contain the value (usually 1) or dummy (*).  The Class for mask channels is indicated by MASK in the Edit Channel dialog.

 

If a row is populated with the value 1 for the Mask channel, that data is not being masked.  When the row has a * in the mask, it is only masked if the user selects the mask option.

 

Collar database

The Mask channel in the collar database works differently than the Mask channel in other drillhole databases. In drillhole projects, the Mask channel in the collar database indicates which holes are selected. Selected holes will have a value of 1 for the Mask channel and unselected holes will have a dummy (*). There are several different ways to select and unselect drillholes.  These options are found under:

Target Standalone (and Oasis montaj with Drillhole Plotting extension)

• DH-Data menu > Select Holes

Target for ArcGIS

• Target Drillhole toolbar > Selection (first 7 options)

Only drillholes that are selected will be included in output plots.  Additionally, processing like 3D gridding and Channel Math will only be performed on selected holes.

 

From-to or Point Databases

The Mask channel in from-to or point drillhole databases works differently than the mask channel in the collar database.  In these types of databases, the Mask channel can be used to mask data that is being plotted.  You first have to indicate that you want to use the Mask channel for plotting/export.  This is done through:

Target Standalone (and Oasis montaj with Drillhole Plotting extension)

• DH-Data menu > Preferences > Use mask channel for plotting/export? 

Target for ArcGIS

• Target Drillhole toolbar > Target Project > Preferences > Use mask channel for plotting/export?

If this parameter is set to Yes, you can mask data that is displayed in plots.  For example, the below plan map was created showing a single drillhole trace and the rock patterns along the trace.  No data is being masked in the geology from-to database.

You can adjust the values in the Mask channel for all the holes in the project using some of the other selection tools.  Let’s say that you only want to plot the rock types “Ca” and “Sif” on your output map.

Target Standalone (and Oasis montaj with Drillhole Plotting extension)

• Make the Geology database the active table.
• DH-Plot > Select Data by Code.
• Select the appropriate channel and other parameters in the dialog > OK.
• The Select Codes dialog will open and you can select the codes of interest.

Target for ArcGIS

• Make the Geology database the active table.
• Target Drillhole toolbar > Selections > Select Data by Code.
• Select the appropriate channel and other parameters in the dialog > OK.
• The Select Codes dialog will open and you can select the codes of interest.

Result of the “Select Data by Code” in the database...

Now if the plan map is recreated, it looks like this...

Other selection tools that can be used for from-to and point databases are:

• Select Data From Map (only in Target or Oasis montaj)
• Select Data by Range

The Mask Channel can quickly be reset to all 1’s or dummies:

• Reset Mask Channel

3D vectors for contours created from a grid

Recently, some of us here at collaborated on a workflow to export topography contours to a 3D vector format.  We thought it'd be a useful one to share with our customers.  Here's how you go about it.

When creating the contours for the grid, modify the Options:

• Set the suppression density to 0 mm.
  This will ensure that the contour lines are closed.  
• For "hi-low annotation", select none.
• For label display, select no labels.
• Optionally define smoothing for the contours

Oasis montaj and Target

In Oasis montaj and Target, the contour option is found under Map Tools > Contour > Contour.  Once the contours are added to the map, select the contour group in the View/Group Manager Tool and export the selection to a 3D Shapefile through Map > Export > ArcView Shapefile.

MapInfo users can export the contour group to a TAB file and the Z value will be the value of the contour level.

Extensions for ArcGIS

In Target for ArcGIS, the contour option is found on the Target Surface toolbar. In Geochemistry for ArcGIS, the contour option is found in the Gridding menu.  Both Target for ArcGIS and Geochemistry for ArcGIS allow you to create the contours directly in Shapefile format.

Geosoft 3D Viewer and 3D DXF export

The 3D Shapefile can be added to the Geosoft 3D Viewer (Add to 3D menu > Imports).  The 3D Shapefile displayed in the 3D Viewer can be exported to a 3D DXF (Export menu > AutoCAD DXF File).

Recreating plots and replotting holes in Target

Recreate plot

Often you'll find it is necessary to recreate a plan map, section map or strip log with only a few changes to the parameters that were used to create the map.  This can be difficult to do from the menu options if the settings in the multi-tabbed dialogs have been changed while creating other maps.  However, the original settings used to create a map can be accessed and used to recreate the map, or create a new updated map.  Here’s how:

1. Select the collar database as the active table to ensure the map is linked to the drillhole project.
2. Make your map of interest the active window.
3. Select the Holes group in the View/Group Manager Tool.
4. Right-click on the map > select Recreate Plan (or Section, Strip Log).
   The Plan Map Parameters dialog will open with the parameters that were used to create that map.
5. You can adjust any of the parameters.
   If you do not want to overwrite the existing map, make sure you add a "Map Name Tag" on the Page Layout tab.
6. Click OK to recreate the map.

Replot holes

For Plan and Section maps, you can use the "Replot Holes" function from the DH-Plot menu to update the map.  This is similar to the above tip but the replot dialog has fewer parameters that can be changed for the active map because it only updates the groups and does not create a new map.

For example, this function could be used to plot proposed holes that were added to the project or to change the data being plotted along the trace.