Australian gold company Barton Gold has decided to advance the use of AI targeting tools developed by exploration technology firm SensOre at its Gawler Craton ground after an initial phase of work showed promise.
The two companies said an “exclusive R&D investment partnership” would see Barton increase its initial A$45,000 investment in SensOre’s South Australia data build by up to $350,000. It is also providing its data sets covering about 60,000 square kilometres of central Gawler Craton tenements for integration into SensOre’s SA “data cube”.
Barton said phase-one regional prospectivity mapping with SensOre input identified “multiple prospective new gold and copper targets on Barton’s tenements and across the surrounding 60,000sq.km central Gawler Craton”.
The companies were collaborating to adapt ASX-listed SensOre’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) DPT targeting engine to SA.
SensOre says conventional mineral exploration involving incremental area reduction is based on decision-making processes that might use 20‑40% of available data and be subject to human biases.
“SensOre takes a different approach, applying integrated AI/ML algorithms to a large geoscience Data Cube to find the digital fingerprints and predict the location of mineral deposits in three core steps,” the company says. The steps are training, prediction and target analysis.
“SensOre generates AI-targets – AI-enhanced deposit predictions – informing targeting.
“SensOre’s exploration tools predict the location and economic viability of deposits, generating information on endowment, grade and depth at a cell dimension small enough to quicken decision making and move directly from predicted target to drill testing cost effectively and with a narrower environmental footprint.”
Barton will drill validate SensOre’s predictions.
The company acquired extensive exploration acreage and production assets of former miners in the region, including a 650,000 tonnes-per-annum carbon-in-pulp (CIP) plant, and more than one million ounces of resources in several locations.
Barton has said it aims to build a plus-2Moz resource base and become a circa-150,000oz-a-year gold producer in the next five years.
“SensOre is on the cutting edge of new mineral exploration technologies and is an ideal partner for Barton,” the gold company’s managing director, Alex Scanlon, said.
“Successful development of this technology is expected to accelerate Barton’s regional exploration successes, and further strengthen Barton’s regional strategic development advantage in the central Gawler Craton.”
Under their agreement, SensOre can receive future, unspecified production royalties from discoveries its technology helps Barton to make. The latter gets 10 years’ exclusive use of SensOre’s SA DPT module for gold and copper within the agreed initial c60,000sq.km target area.
SensOre’s share price is up nearly 20% in the past month to A40c, capitalising the company at about $10.2 million.
