26 MARCH 2022 WorldWide Drilling Resource® X-Ray of the Earth: One Step Closer to Mining with Cosmic Rays Compiled by Amy White, Associate Editor, WorldWide Drilling Resource® Clean energy solutions are a top priority for businesses and homes across the globe; however, this energy cannot be produced without mining. Wind, solar, electric, and nuclear technologies require mining a variety of critical minerals and metals. Production of these necessary components must increase by about 500% in the next two to three decades. Since most near-surface deposits have already been tapped, the mining industry is searching deeper to meet energy demands. A Vancouver-based company called Ideon Technologies is blazing a trail of innovative mining. As reported in WWDR in October 2020, the company has been using muon tomography to revolutionize mineral exploration. Muons are subatomic particles which occur naturally, and are produced when cosmic rays strike the atmosphere. The rays are harmless as they pass through the earth’s surface about once a minute in every third of an inch. New applications of muon tomography could allow mining companies to locate magnetic variances with greater accuracy down to about 3300 feet deep. It is very similar to the way x-rays and MRIs allow a look inside the human body. In the summer of 2021, Ideon Technologies, along with French Orano Group - one of the world’s top uranium producers - deployed the first cosmic-ray muon detector for use in industry-standard boreholes. The research and development project received advisory services and financial backing from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program, and is ongoing at Orano’s McClean Lake site in northern Saskatchewan. The imaging target is a high-grade, compact uranium deposit about 985 feet beneath the earth’s surface. Muon technology continues to gain momentum. In late 2021, Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster, a cross-sector collaboration for digital technology development, announced a $5.6 million investment to launch the Earth X-Ray for Low-Impact Mining project. The project aims to enable exploration companies to target mineral deposits more precisely to increase discovery and sustainable production. Ideon is leading the project in partnership with Simon Fraser University, Dias Geophysical, Microsoft, Fireweed Zinc, and Mitacs. The project will involve ultramodern hardware and software, novel data inversion and integration techniques, advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, and geostatistical methods to create comprehensive 3D profiles of subsurface anomalies, such as mineral and metal deposits, air voids, and caves. Ideon pointed out that humans have been mining the earth for thousands of years. The future of mining will require geologists to look deeper than ever. This is where muon technology comes into play, giving mining companies the advantage of knowing exactly where they need to drill. Ideon recognizes a possibility to assist gas and oil companies with exploration efforts, but is currently focusing strictly on the mining sector to help find essential minerals and metals for future energy production. “This project will generate new technologies and breakthrough approaches to help solve one of the oldest problems on earth,” said Gary Agnew, Ideon CEO and cofounder. “As coinnovators, we will deliver a solution to the global mining industry that will directly reduce the cost, time, risk, and environmental impact of finding new mineral and metal deposits, while dramatically increasing certainty and discovery rates in a sector that has been historically characterized by uncertainty.” One of the world’s first borehole muon detectors was deployed downhole in 2021. Photo courtesy of Ideon. MIN
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