Adelaide Branch August Technical Lunch – Towards the exploration metaverse with Professor Tom Raimondo
The University of Adelaide’s Eclipse Room hosted 40 attendees representing a cross section of industry professionals, students, academics and AusIMM stalwarts for August’s Technical Lunch – Towards the Exploration Metaverse. Delivered by Tom Raimondo, a Professor of Geology and Geochemistry and Professorial Lead for STEM at the University of South Australia, this presentation introduced the application of VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) to geoscience and mineral exploration and implications for the future of the industry.
The day’s proceedings started with a student presentation from Amelia Orchard, based on her research project, entitled Identifying Atmospheric Methane Causing Past Greenhouse Climates. This project employed mass spectrometry to analyse carbon isotope anomalies from South Australia’s Cooper Basin coal seams with particular interest in Le-Chiffre 1. Amelia was able to assess these anomalies against known global icehouse boundaries identifying alignment with similar discoveries in Mozambique and Southern China.
Jake Rowland followed with a presentation on his Honours thesis, ‘Geology and origin of unconformity-style REE mineralisation along the Watts Rise – Killi Killi trend, Tanami Region, Western Australia’. These deposits are a newly defined style of hydrothermal mineralisation with significant potential for discoveries of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in northern Australia. Key minerals in the region, Xenotime and Florencite represent important sources of heavy and light REEs respectively, essential for the clean energy transition as materials for high temperature permanent magnets. Jake discussed the minerals’ potential for U-Pb dating in identifying regional scale ore forming events.
The University of Adelaide’s Eclipse Room hosted approximately 40 attendees with excellent catering
Professor Tom Raimondo challenged the boundaries between Earth and Computer Sciences with his presentation “Towards the exploration metaverse”. This was a compelling introduction to Tom’s work as a member of the ARC IVE (the Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments) and leading Project LIVE (Learning through Immersive Virtual Environments). Australia is amongst world leaders in this space with ARC IVE representing the largest centre in the Southern Hemisphere, paving the way for augmented and virtual reality applications in education, analytics and data processing.
Professor Raimondo introduced several examples of the application of these technologies including “360° Flinders Ranges” a virtual tour of the region in support of nomination for UNESCO World Heritage status. LogAR employs both headset and tablet-based AR to streamline and enhance the process of geological core logging. OZMap, an initiative developed for OZ Mineral’s Opportunity Fund Project 7 is an immersive environment for viewing spatial data while ImAxesGEO allows three dimensional and intuitive, hands-on analytics in a virtual space.
These projects are well placed to unlock limitless potential in an industry facing increasing volumes, types and complexity of data, enabling collaboration and accessibility. Many of them are at operational readiness level with hardware requirements within the bounds of current industry norms.
Professor Tom Raimondo “Towards the Exploration Metaverse”
The presentations were followed by a great Q&A session, Tom’s presentation was recorded and is available in the digital library. The Adelaide Branch would like to thank Professor Tom Raimondo, Amelia Orchard and Jake Rowland for their contributions along with all who attended on the day.
Lucas Ljubicic (MAusIMM CP(Min))
Adelaide Branch Committee Member