A PROJECT bringing together experts in finance and geoscience will employ methods used to predict stock market movements and apply them to Australian geological data in an effort to locate mineral deposits.

The strategy is part of the $A12 million big data knowledge discovery project, in which computer scientists, financial analysts and natural scientists combine their expertise to discover information hidden in massive, multi-layered data sets.

University of Sydney school of geosciences earth dynamics and tectonics specialist Professor Dietmar Muller said the initiative could play a part in enhancing exploration efficiency.

“In the past year, investment in high-risk mining exploration in Australia has plummeted,” Muller said.

“Any information that can improve the accuracy of such greenfield exploration would obviously be highly valued.”

To undertake the project, Muller, together with natural scientists from Macquarie University, will join experts in machine learning and analytics from information and communications technology research centre National ICT Australia, as well as experts in software and big data from SIRCA.

“Part of the exciting potential of this project is that by applying algorithms used to predict stock market movements to the detailed data sets we have on Australia’s geology, we hope to be able to uncover regions which have the highest likelihood of having exploitable mineral deposits buried hundreds of metres under weathered surface rocks,” Muller said.

The project will use national geological data, made available by Geoscience Australia, to reach back up to 1.5 billion years.

“At that time Australia was made up of at least five smaller continents separated by ancient ocean basins and volcanic arcs which are now destroyed or deeply buried in the crust,” Muller said.

“Some of the world’s richest metal deposits were formed during this period but the reasons are not fully understood.

“Working together we plan on developing a new space-time data mining approach, exploiting similarities with other research fields such as finance and taking a new look at huge geo-data sets to unravel the structure and evolution of Australia in a global context.”

The project is supported by a $4 million investment from the Science and Industry Endowment Fund.