Logging stratigraphy on a drill rig to decide to continue or end the hole is a skill that every geologist should have. Ideally logging happens at the rig in realtime as we are often wanting to determine end of hole critera. Let’s consider how well hyperspectral and image data perform in classifing samples into prospective and non-prospective units. As usual we are going to use this dataset from from the C3DMM project.

Let’s talk about the performance of using chips vs hyperspectral to classify ore and waste in an Iron ore deposit. Before we go onto the technical work let’s discuss the practical uses of this information. Common use cases would be deciding if a sample is ore/waste, screening samples for further analysis or simply selecting the right sensor for you application and trading off cost/speed/performance/technical difficulty considerations. So with all that in mind I hope that you will find a smart application in your workplace.