The mining company applied artificial intelligence in the exploration in an area located southeast of Antofagasta, for which it worked with the national startup, Mineral Forecast, and resulted in the confirmation of three targets that already were identified and the discovery of another six targets with high probabilities of mineralization.
At the end of 2021, SQM began reviewing the exploration targets of the Taltal District, an 8,000-hectare sector located in Region II, southeast of Antofagasta. On this occasion, the company worked with Mineral Forecast, a Chilean startup that used artificial intelligence in the project data in order to have greater assertiveness in the discovery of potential sectors to later carry out drilling.
After this process, the existence of 3 targets that were already identified was verified and another 6 targets with mineralization potential were detected.
Arturo Rochefort, one of the founding partners of Mineral Forecast, comments that “we are very grateful to work with the SQM team, with whom we have an excellent relationship, which allowed us to make the process very smooth. This work helped to identify new interesting potential targets. In addition, the Pampa Chango and Nitona targets are confirmed as an 8 x 4 km zone of high interest”.
Rochefort also explains that in this process they worked with the renowned New Zealand company Seequent, a leader in geological data modeling and visualization. “We are very grateful that Seequent has made it easy for us to use their Leapfrog and Edge suite. It allowed us to share and present results in a more attractive way, as well as connect very well with the traditional geological models that our clients already have".
To learn more about the project, visit https://www.sqm.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/88.- Distrito-Taltal.pdf, and contact Jose Dias Cifuentes, Director of New Metal Businesses at SQM (jose.dias.cifuentes@sqm.com)
News published in: