Interoperability is a term that many people may not be familiar with, but that’s a situation that CSIRO Exploration and Mining is looking to change.

Acting chief of the mining research division Steve Harvey says with most of Australia’s surface and near surface deposits already found and mined, new technology is needed to find other profitable ore bodies.

CSIRO research scientist Simon Cox explains how a project dating back to the early 1990’s is allowing an enhanced level of information sharing in geology and mining.

The pioneering project is aimed at using advanced web-based technologies in the development of new tools that make data interoperable and readily available to those who need it.

“As long as when you’re doing exploration you’re restricted to just the data that’s in the data base you’ve got in front of you, then obviously you’re missing something and in mineral exploration or in the geosciences in general, even though we have a lot of data, the sampling of the Earth is very incomplete,” Mr Cox says.

“You don’t want to give up the opportunity to get any and all data, so interoperability allows you to access different data sets more easily. The real goal of the interoperability project is to allow access when you need it, almost immediately.”

Interoperability will be a key aspect as the strategies used in mineral exploration continue to change.

“The sort of traditional prospecting kind of exploration, essentially walking around and seeing what you trip over, is giving way to more scientific mineral exploration, including a lot of geochemistry and geophysics,” Mr Cox says.

“Particularly in Australia, most new mineral discoveries are under cover so they require a lot more interpretation of the geologic environment, so needing to pull together all the information really requires you not to exclude any of the possible data sources, which is what interoperability is about.”