Earth X-ray for Low-Impact Mining
Accelerating the global transition to low-impact mining with the world’s first Earth x-ray discovery platform.
Project Overview
Updated November 4, 2024
The Problem
There’s no clean energy without mining. To power the global transition to technologies such as electrification, wind, solar, nuclear, and other clean-tech energy solutions, production of many critical minerals and metals needs to increase by nearly 500% over the next 20-30 years. With most near-surface deposits already discovered, the mining industry is now being forced to search deeper underground.
Traditional search methods equate to a lot of unnecessary, invasive, and costly drilling, with an average return on investment of -45%. These drilling costs currently account for 55% (US$6B) of the annual global exploration investment spend. Innovation is required to enable precision-targeting, change the economics of exploration, and with it reduce the current environmental impact of mining while increasing the sustainable production of critical mineral resources.
How We Are Solving It
This project, led by muon tomography pioneer Ideon Technologies, will allow mining companies — through new implementation and integration methods — to identify, map, and monitor subsurface anomalies down to 1 km beneath the Earth’s surface, much like x-rays and MRIs give us visibility inside the human body. The project consortium, which includes Dias Geophysical, Fireweed Metals, Simon Fraser University, Mitacs, and Microsoft (with additional industry support from BHP), is building, testing, and deploying a Subsurface Intelligence Platform to help precision-target deposits and create the environmentally responsible mineral supply chain needed to fuel the clean energy transition.
The Subsurface Intelligence Platform will feature state-of-the-art hardware and software, novel data inversion and integration techniques, advanced AI algorithms, and geostatistical methods to construct detailed 3D profiles of subsurface anomalies such as mineral and metal deposits, air voids, caves and other structures. This increased visibility and locational accuracy will help reduce ‘hit-and-miss’ drilling and the associated environmental impacts. This Canadian innovation can positively impact the underlying economics of a very traditional industry, paving the way for low-impact mining – or, for some minerals, being able to mine without a mine.
The Result
Ideon Technologies’ world-leading technology is accelerating the transition to a net-zero future by identifying critical minerals up to 1 km beneath the Earth’s surface and increasing geological certainty to more than 95%. Their Earth X-ray platform is now being deployed in Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Australia through 5/6 of the world’s largest mining companies. The project is also an example of the phenomenal scaling potential and trajectory that collaborative innovation can lead to for Canadian SMEs, with Ideon doubling their staff in 2023 and on target to double again in 2024.
Ideon Technologies and their work with this project also received the 2023 Governor General’s Award for Innovation, as nominated by DIGITAL.
Building on the foundational mining exploration technologies developed in the Earth X-Ray for Low-Impact Mining project, Ideon Technologies is now leading a follow-on initiative: Subsurface Intelligence to Unlock Critical Minerals Supply (UCM). This project will use advanced 3D visualization to expand the focus of the original Earth-X initiative, addressing the entire mining value chain—from exploration and operations to tailings management, reclamation and aftercare.
Project Lead
Project Partners
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"DIGITAL's powerful innovative framework has been instrumental in driving our creation of breakthrough technology for the global mining industry, at a time when the industry and the world need it the most. The Earth-X consortium has enabled us to massively scale our ambitions and potential impact, within Canada and globally. By combining our strengths, our consortium has transcended traditional boundaries between academia and industry to achieve outcomes that extend far beyond the sum of the parts. This collective achievement is underscored by our being selected for the Governor General's Innovation Award—a recognition that is testament to the transformative power of collaborative innovation.”
CEO and Co-Founder, Ideon Technologies Inc. Recipients of the Governor General's Innovation Award 2023 -
“Technology will help us unlock the next generation of resources the world needs to support economic growth and decarbonisation. Through partnerships with technology innovators and others in the resources industry, we can help bring new technologies to market that will improve the precision, depth, and sustainability of exploration in Canada and globally. BHP has a long history and a growing presence in Canada, and we are pleased to join this collaboration to support the nation’s resources sector.”
Chief Technical Officer, BHP Read the Financial Post Article (November 2021) -
“This revolutionary project has been a testament to the power of partnerships between government, academia, and industry. As the first-of-its-kind in the world, it helps position Canada as a global leader in sustainability. As a leading Canadian research university committed to sustainability, SFU contributed advanced multi-disciplinary expertise to this project, in areas including advanced industrial fabrication for micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology, statistics, and earth sciences."
Vice-President, Research and International, Simon Fraser University -
“We founded Dias on the principle of turning scientific discovery into innovative technologies that can be applied to tough geoscience challenges. Our partners in the Earth-X consortium have shared and enhanced that vision – it has been exciting to work together on solutions to supply critical minerals to a world actively transitioning its energy production and distribution.”
VP Technology, Dias Geophysical