2014 Events

May 12, 2014

"Evidence from the Earth:
History, Methods, Law and Criminal Cases Solved with Rocks and Minerals"

Raymond Murray, Ph.D.
Forensic Geologist

 

October 13, 2014

"Modeling and Mitigating Social Risk in Mineral Development
through Data Mining Social Media and Sustainability Indicators"


Dr. Sean D. Dessureault,
Mine Intelligence Research Group,
Department of Mining and Geological Engineering at The University of Arizona


Mineral projects have traditionally been faced with geological, technical, and political risk. Mineral development companies have developed technology and sustainable development practices to mitigate these risks allowing for less uncertainty in these areas. However, a powerful force has emerged that is transforming how we communicate, the political process, dating, marketing, and even sparking revolutions and overthrowing governments. This new force is Social Media. Opponents of economic development are adept at using social media to quickly change the risk landscape for investments, targeting activities both in the locality of the deposit as well as the share price of the mineral investment. Traditional mineral economics, focusing largely on commodity value fluctuation is an insufficient instrument for modeling risk to investments. Due to the speed of social media's impact firms must undertake a more reactive and proactive stance to mitigate this new form of social risk. Big Data offers a toolset that has considerably more analytical capabilities than traditional mineral economic techniques and can monitor the impact of mitigation activities allowing for a feedback loop so that the activities can be tweaked

Dr. Sean Dessureault is an associate professor at the University of Arizona, engaged in applied research related to the integration and effective use of modern mining information systems. He directs the Mining Intelligence Research Group (MIRG) laboratory having real-time and historical data warehouses from several mining companies, an integrated monitoring room for remote optimization of mines, and cloud as well as local servers to implement big-data research on industrial and sustainability/social media data sets. (www.mirg.arizona.edu).

He founded MISOM technologies Inc., a mine technology company that designs and implements integrated data solutions and mobile apps with consideration toward the people (cultural) and process (workflow) aspects of mine operations (www.misom.com). He is a recognized expert in both underground and surface mobile fleet mine automation, big-data in mining and data-driven sustainability. Dr. Dessureault was awarded the Foundation of the South West American Mining Hall of Fame Medal of Merit under 40 for his academic and entrepreneurial work supporting the technological transformation of mining.

April 28-29, 2014

THE SME 3rd ANNUAL CONFERENCE
CURRENT TRENDS IN MINING FINANCE

Improving Profitability in the Mining Industry
by Using Smart Finance and Big Data

See the Agenda here
and details on two Short Courses here

The Princeton Club, New York City


March 19, 2014


"Copper, the Other Rare Metal"
Benjamin Cox, Oreninc
Please click here to view the presentation


Benjamin Cox is Founder & Managing Director of Oreninc. Prior to founding Oreninc, Mr. Cox served as a senior analyst at the D.E. Shaw Group. Currently, he holds the position of Chief Executive Officer and Director of Aston Bay Holdings Ltd., a copper and zinc company with properties in Nunavut, Canada. In addition, Mr. Cox serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Roche Bay plc, an iron ore holding company that also has leases in Nunavut, Canada. Mr. Cox is an expert on market dynamics of the metals and mining industry, with a focus on raw materials including base metals, iron ore, platinum group metals, and industrial materials such as potash and lithium. Mr. Cox holds a B.S. from Brandeis University and an M.B.A. from Portland State University.


January 29, 2014

"The Application and Contribution of AI (Artificial Intelligence) to Mining Exploration"

Jean-Francois Cloutier, P.Geo
DIAGNOS

Imagine a computerized modeling system capable of predicting the location of a mineral deposit. It would certainly be a geologist new best friend and a welcome addition to the toolbox we use to answer the age old question: where’s the money in the dirt? In his presentation Mr. Cloutier explained the mechanisms of applying the latest computer technology to mining to find the highest probability areas to find mineralization.

Mr. Cloutier is senior geologist for DIAGNOS,a leading Canadian company in knowledge extraction and artificial intelligence. Having a B.Sc. in Resource Geology and a M.Sc. in Remote Sensing (UQAM), Jean-Francois participated in several gold and base metal exploration campaigns throughout Quebec, Ontario and Guyana.