Mineral Exploration

Winter 2013

Mineral Exploration is the official publication of the Association of Mineral Exploration British Columbia.

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deposits and mineral prospects to the north and south of the QUEST project area, where the rocks are moderately well exposed at the surface. Another technology organization with a local presence is MICROMINE North America, a developer of software for the exploration and mining industry. The company, whose head office is located in Perth, Australia, has had a Vancouver office since September 2005. MICROMINE's Vancouver office is small – a staff of half a dozen – but important to the company's North American operations, as it looks after sales, marketing, training and support for MICROMINE's customers in Canada and the U.S. MICROMINE software is developed in Australia and Russia, but one-quarter of its beta testers are located in North America. The company has upwards of 125 customers in Canada and the U.S. MICROMINE recently released the latest versions of Micromine and Geobank, its exploration and mine design and geological data management software. Micromine is modular exploration and mine design software that captures, manages and interprets mining and PM p20-23_Technology.indd 23 exploration data. The company says the new features in Micromine 2013 "focus on intuitive usability with enhanced work flow methodologies and logical processes." Micromine 2013 includes two new modules, Implicit Modelling and Stratigraphic Modelling, as well as enhancements and improvements to other modules. Implicit Modelling can be used to create and visualize complex wire frames. The module uses industry-standard radial basis to model grade shells, lithology boundaries, faults and surfaces. The wire frames can be displayed in Vizex, Micromine's 3D environment, and can be used to finalize geological interpretations. Stratigraphic Modelling enables Micromine 2013 to incorporate seam block models (SBM) and seam modelling workflow. Seam modelling tools simplify the creation of SBMs, such as splits, plies, overburden and interburden. Geobank 2013 has a new reporting module. Major features include charting, data-binding, master-detail reports, sub-reports and a graphical enduser chart designer. The new software release also includes a new data model framework module that enables users to build their data models with tools that support common data processes and data requirements. Other features include a new audit framework, which increases data accountability by tracking the user name, and the date and time at which data is added and updated in the database; new multilingual support allows users to work in their preferred language. Pacific North West Capital Corp., a Vancouver-based exploration company whose flagship project is the River Valley platinum metal project near Sudbury, Ontario, is a MICROMINE customer. President and COO Bill Stone says the company has been using Micromine software mostly for geological modelling. Stone says the three most important features of the software are its cost effectiveness, ease of use and the high quality of its technical support. He adds that the most important benefits to the company have been improved geological understanding, exploration planning and project optimization. The software has "greatly aided" the reassessment of the potential for resource expansion and exploration upside at its River Valley project. ■ w i n t e r 2 0 1 3      23 13-11-27 10:00 AM

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