A junior mining outfit is taking an analytic approach to get the geological big picture around a former Sudbury-area gold mine.
MacDonald Mines Exploration has engaged GoldSpot Discoveries, a Toronto mining technology company, to help with exploration on its SPJ Project, 40 kilometres northeast of the city.
MacDonald believes there's a large gold system of interconnected deposits on its 18,930-hectare land package in Davis, Street and Scadding Townships. The property contains the former Scadding Gold Mine, which produced 29,000 ounces of gold in the 1980s.
The company made a new gold discovery this year at SPJ, 800 metres south of the mine, dubbed the Glade area, where it continues to find more mineralization along a more than 200-metre strike length.
GoldSpot is an artificial intelligence (AI) mine tech company, using a machine-learning algorithm to process millions of data points to identify targets for exploration drilling.
They'll be working with MacDonald's technical team to sort through their geological maps, drill logs, geophysics, geochemistry and structural data to come up with some drill-ready targets and identify other promising areas on the property.
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GoldSpot's team of geologists and data experts use machine learning to comb through this information to identify new patterns and trends to find mineral discoveries.
"The SPJ Project will benefit tremendously from the assistance of GoldSpot’s technologies and data-driven approach to exploration," said MacDonald Mines' interim CEO Stuart Adair in a news release. "Our team looks forward to working with the GoldSpot team to evaluate and unlock the potential of the SPJ Project.”
"The size of the SPJ Project’s land package is substantial," said GoldSpot executive chairman and president Denis Laviolette, "and we believe the large number of potential targets on the property are ripe for further analysis and refining under our team’s technological and geological guidance."
GoldSpot has worked with Hochschild Mining, Yamana Gold, McEwen Mining, Vale in Sudbury and a number of junior mining companies in Northern Ontario.
They're currently working with Gold'n Futures in applying AI technology at its Hercules Gold Project, 40 kilometres east of Greenstone Gold's Hardrock gold mine open-pit project in northwestern Ontario as well as Warrior Gold for its exploration programs in the Kirkland Lake area.
