The BCGS executive are pleased to announce our upcoming BCGS 2025 Roundup Breakfast.

Breakfast will be served buffet style and consist of scrambled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, broiled tomatos, freshly baked muffins/scones/croissants, fruit preserves, juice, and coffee/tea/water.

Please register and pay via Paypal below.
Registration will close on Fri, Jan 17 @ 12pm. Space is limited so register early!

Abstract:

Geologic hydrogen and an emerging role of mining geophysics
Yaoguo Li * & Mengli Zhang
Center for Gravity, Electrical, and Magnetic Studies,Department of Geophysics, Colorado School of Mines

Geologic hydrogen has emerged as a potentially transformational new energy resource in the quest to transition to net-zero emission energy supplies. If realized, this new form of energy resource could circumvent the insurmountable challenge of finding and producing enough metals and critical minerals to meet the demands of clean energy. Addressing the technical challenges to finding geologic hydrogen requires the reconfiguration and recombination of two major branches of exploration geophysics, namely, the mineral exploration and oil & gas exploration. In this presentation, we will review geologic hydrogen as a primary energy source, the current understanding of the serpentinization-driven geologic hydrogen systems, and the need for integrated exploration strategies to find geologic hydrogen. We will also discuss a source rock-centered strategy for geologic hydrogen exploration, which spans from source-rock delineation to reservoir de-risking. The crucial role of mineral exploration geophysics in the source-rock centered exploration approach for the geologic hydrogen could provide mining geophysicists with a new cycle of opportunities and the new space of applying our expertise.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Yaoguo Li is a Professor in the Department of Geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines, where he has been leading the Center for Gravity, Electrical, and Magnetic Studies (CGEM), co-leading the Geo-Multiphysics Research Consortium (GMRC), and co-leading a newly formed consortium on the Potential of Geologic Hydrogen Gas Resources. He holds a PhD in geophysics from the University of British Columbia. Dr. Li’s research interests include inverse theory, and inversion of gravity, magnetic, electrical, and electromagnetic geophysical data, joint inversion and geology differentiation. Geologic hydrogen exploration, efficient data acquisition in resource exploration, and machine learning-assisted inversion methods are among his newest pursuits. His research covers a broad range of geoscientific problems in geologic hydrogen exploration, mineral exploration, and carbon storage monitoring. He is the instructor of the 11^th EAGE Education Tour. He is a co-recipient of the 1999 Gerald W. Hohmann Award, and Honorary Member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG).

Abstract

Geological structure is distinctive and boundaries are sharp contacts between units. On the other hand, geophysical models are often smooth and geological meaning interpreted. These interpretations are often subjective and the model can be unconstrained and not always influenced by prior information. Presenting these results to a non-geophysicist can be challenging. Typically, delineations are sketched or overlain on the geophysical model to communicate the results thoroughly. Information on structure orientation is often ambiguous. With prior information, we can select more geologically relevant models using regularization. However, it is more common that prior information is not available. This work proposes an automated approach to infer structure in geophysical models. This is done by applying image segmentation methods borrowed from computer vision. This work uses a Transformer network (Vaswani, 2017) to perform the segmentation. The segmentation then becomes the prior information that we update the regularization with as we iterate an inversion. Within the regularization, we can indicate spaces in the model and the directions to regularize. We also explore additional methods to incorporate segmentation to the inversion via proximal operators and the Alternating Method of Multipliers (ADMM). A more clearly defined targeting system for interfaces like unconformities or structural orientations of intrusive units, which are often associated with mineralization zones, is provided by incorporating segmentation methods. The results provide an outlook on using machine learning and foundational models for structural interpretation of geophysical models.

Bio

Johnathan Kuttai graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a B.Sc in geophysics in 2010 and began his career in data acquisition. Johnathan then joined an instrumentation group, writing software for signal processing large-scale DC resistivity and induced polarization data. During his career, he gained experience processing and acquiring many km’s of electromagnetic and potential field data worldwide in various environments, cold to hot, flat to mountainous, and desert to jungle. In 2017, Johnathan joined the SimPEG group to explore the geophysical inversion space, which eventually led to an interest in pursuing a Ph.D. Johnathan is currently with the UBC-GIF group, researching avenues in geophysical inversion and machine learning. Johnathan also works part-time doing inversion and research & development at Computational Geosciences Inc.

Recording

Our 2024 annual general meeting (AGM) will be held:

at 4:40pm on Tuesday, December 17, 2024
at Room 111 – 409 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC, V6C 1T2

The main order of business will be to elect the Directors of the BCGS and review the past year’s activity. Our bylaws allow for between 4 and 7 Directors. The current six directors are standing for re-election and one new director is standing for election.

We are inviting interested persons to nominate themselves for election to join the Board of the BCGS. Please indicate your intent to do so by 23h59 on Wednesday, December 11, 2024.  All names of prospective candidates will then be included on a revised AGM notice to be emailed out the following business day if any changes are required.

The BCGS directors standing for re-election are:

The following new directors are standing for election:

We would like to remind you there are two classes of voting members in the BCGS:

1. General members. An annual fee of $20. Will be returned as a discount should they choose to enroll in our annual symposium; and
2. Student members. Free membership upon demonstration of enrollment in a post-secondary program at an accredited educational institution.

In order to participate in the vote, we ask that you pay your 2025 member dues online via Paypal on the “Join Us” page (link below). These member dues will provide membership in the BCGS through the end of 2025. Eligible students, as defined above, are entitled to vote. If you are unsure of your current membership status please send us an email (info at bcgsonline.org) and we’d be happy to check for you.

http://www.bcgsonline.org/join-us/

The AGM is open to all members and non-members.

The BCGS is exited to formally announce our upcoming 2024 symposium titled “Applications in Seismic Methods for Mining Exploration and Engineering“.

The focus of this year’s BCGS Symposium will be on development and applications in seismic methods for mineral exploration and mining engineering. Presentation topics will focus on advanced seismic reflection technology (e.g. HD3D surveys) applied to mineral exploration projects, small scale seismic surveys for shallow engineering investigations (e.g. tailings designs), seismic ambient noise tomography (ANT) for shallow overburden and bedrock structural/alteration mapping and passive seismic monitoring used to assist engineers during active mining operations. The symposium aligns with the goals of the BCGS to promote geophysics and geoscience education in BC.

In addition to a busy program of 12 presentations by industry leading explorationists, engineers and academics, there will be information booths set up by leading companies to facilitate more direct interaction with the speakers and with industry professionals.

Companies being represented include HiSeis, Fleet Space Technologies, Sisprobe, Teck Resources, BHP, Viridien (CGG), Axiom Group, ESG Solutions, SmartSolo and Frontier Geosciences.

Lunch and snacks are included in the registration fee.

Target Audience: Geophysicists, geologists, engineers and all exploration and mining professionals.

Speakers:

• Nick Arndt (Caur Technologies & Universite Grenoble Alpes)
• Darren Burrows (Fleet Space Technologies)
• Dan Hollis (Sisprobe SAS & IGGP/SIO University of California San Diego)
• Tanya Coetzee (Axiom Geophysics & Remote Sensing)
• Sebastian Braganza (ESG Solutions)
• Christian Dupuis (Universite Laval)
• Heather Schijns (Teck Resources)
• Andy Dyke (HiSeis Canada Ltd)
• Joel Jansen (Lundin Mining Corp.)
• Jared Townsend (Think & Act Differently, Powered by BHP)
• Max Norman (Viridien Group)

Schedule:

Abstracts:

Details:

Registration

Please register in advance of the symposium. Your registration is guaranteed once payment has been received. The attendee name must be entered for registration to be complete. Confirmed speakers and vendors do not need to register. If you need to register multiple attendees at once, please email info@bcgsonline.org. Payment will be processed by Paypal and can be paid using a credit card, debit card, or a Paypal account. To pay by credit card click on the “Checkout” button below.

Current paid 2024 BCGS members are able to register at the BCGS member rate for the event. Other attendees must use the non-member industry rate.

Thank you everyone for your support. We are now at capacity and in-person registrations are closed.

Sponsors

A big thank you to our sponsors for helping make this event happen.

Abstract

Recording