The solution was developed using data from Goldcorp’s Red Lake Gold Mines in northern Ontario. There, it provided independent support to drill targets planned via traditional methods and proposed new targets after it identified key information that allowed explorers in the area to quickly develop geological extrapolations. The new targets were later verified and drilling at some of them is ongoing, with the first target yielding the predicted mineralization at the expected depth.

“We are using accelerated computing power for complex geospatial queries that can harmonize geological data from an entire site on a single platform. This is the first time this solution has been ever used, which makes this project all the more significant,” Mark Fawcett, Partner with IBM Canada, said in the press release.

Seeing these preliminary results, Goldcorp said it will put the new technology to work on additional targets in 2019.