Press Release: MultiMiner has launched!
MultiMiner has been launched: the new EU funded project that uses innovative Earth Observation
technologies for safer, more efficient and environmentally considerate mineral exploration and mine site
monitoring.
MultiMiner addresses a growing problem within the EU; dependency on raw materials. In recent years,
the fragility of relying on external sources of critical raw materials has been laid bare. The critical raw
material market is subject to influences from many factors including war, sanctions and production
restrictions. All of these restrict the EU’s options for importation, and they create an unsustainable
economic atmosphere for residents. It is essential that the EU investigates its own untapped potential
for raw material production and moves towards a more self-sufficient model for critical raw material
production.
However, an increase in domestic mining for critical raw materials may produce adverse impacts on the
local environment. MultiMiner’s outputs will aim to make mining safer, socially more acceptable, more
economically efficient and will reduce the negative impact of mining on the surrounding environment.
MultiMiner aims to improve mineral exploration and mining site monitoring practices through its
generic, but highly innovative machine learning solutions which do not require any or only little data
collected on the ground. MultiMiner uses Earth Observation data from EU’s Earth observation
Copernicus programme, and commercial and European national satellites. Data from COSMO-Skymed,
EnMAP, PRISMA, TerraSAR-X, as well as high and low altitude drones all feed into MultiMiner’s efforts
to improve the safety, environmental impact and cost-efficiency of mineral exploration and mine site
monitoring. The applicability of the developed algorithms will be demonstrated in four test sites in
Finland, Austria and Greece.
The in situ data collection methods are varied also, as Project Lead Maarit Middleton of Geological
Survey of Finland (GTK) explains:
“in situ field work for demonstration of the developed algorithms include hand specimen sampling for
MultiMiner Project Lead Maarit Middleton of Geological
mineralogy and mineral chemistry, spectral measurements of rocks in the field, water sampling with a
drone sampler, water quality measurements and sampling, measurements of ground surface moisture,
and utilization of the existing data collected by the mining companies on regular basis for monitoring
purposes.”
Survey of Finland (GTK)
MultiMiner will not only improve mining operations but will also increase their transparency, as
potential environmental impacts can be detected as early as possible and digital information of the
currently unexploitable raw materials can be stored for future generations. MultiMiner aims to create
new, innovative tools utilizing Earth observation data that can be used to discover additional primary
resources within Europe, thus ensuring a legacy of EU raw material self-sufficiency.
FACTS
MultiMiner stands for Multi-source and Multi-scale Earth Observation and Novel Machine Learning
Methods for Mineral Exploration and Mine Site Monitoring.
MultiMiner is supported by an EU fund of 4,4 million EUR, and will last for 42 months between January
2023 and June 2026.
MultiMiner is a pan-European consortium consisting of 12 partners and 1 associated partner from
research institutes, academia, consulting businesses and mining industry with interdisciplinary
backgrounds in geology, remote sensing and machine learning. The project partners are Geological
Survey of Finland (GTK), Technical Research Center of Finland (VTT), Yara Suomi Oy (Yara), Hellenic
Survey of Geology and Mineral Exploration (H.S.G.M.E.), European Science Foundation (ESF), Czech
Geological Survey (CGS), University of Leoben (MUL), Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural
Resources (BGR), Veitsch-Radex Gmbh & Co Og (RHI Magnesita), GeoSphere Austria, Hellas Gold S.A
(HG), EFTAS Remote Sensing Technology Transfer GmbH (EFTAS), Technical University of Munich
(TUM).
Download the PDF here.