RE: Article in todays FT12 Sep 2021 19:48
"KoBold, founded in 2018, collects vast troves of historical and scientific data and uses algorithms to identify where mineral deposits might be below the earth’s surface.
It then surveys the potential areas using aircraft and satellite surveys, feeding the data back into the computer models, which in turn tell its geologists where to look
“KoBold’s technology has been designed to pick up faint signals in the data pointing to hidden ore deposits,” the company said.
KoBold has explored for mineral deposits in Canada, Australia and several African countries. Last month it signed a joint venture agreement with BlueJay Mining to explore for minerals in Greenland.
“The exploration process is a very manual, very human process right now and we’re augmenting the human,” said Kurt House, KoBold chief executive. “What we do is efficiency of information — is rigorously assess what the most useful information to gather is.”
KoBold is backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as well as Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
Keenan Jennings, vice-president of BHP Metals Exploration, said the technology would help it find mineral deposits that were deeper underground because a lot of shallow deposits had already been discovered.