The University of New South Wales is using geology and Artificial Intelligence to create a virtual model of the Earth to reveal deposits of copper for a world that needs it more than ever.
The International Energy Agency, as well as global financial giants Goldman Sachs and Bloomberg have all recently signalled a looming global copper supply crisis as it becomes the go to metal for electrification and clean energy.
Bloomberg suggested the world will need to find 10M more tonnes of copper by 2030 given few new copper deposits and ageing mines with dropping ore quality. Finding accessible, long term copper mines is becoming urgent, a task that the University of New South Wales—UNSW—believes technology can help make easier.
Researchers from UNSW’s Earthbyte have developed software called GPlates to model the Earth in four dimensions, allowing them to look deep inside the planet and back into the past to discover where copper deposits formed along ancient mountain ranges.
Geologists typically use a set of well-established tools to look for copper, including geological mapping, geochemical sampling, geophysical surveys and remote sensing.
But UNSW researchers are using machine learning to look at different parts of the world to see if they have experienced conditions conducive to forming copper deposits at different times.
The Earthbyte group has already identified candidate regions in the Americas, and is teaming up with AuScope’s “Downward Looking Telescope” project and Australian startups like Lithodat and DeeperX, as well as mining companies to boost the use of AI and supercomputing to bring copper exploration into the future.