The LOOP Project: towards multi-scale digital twins of geology?

To support a socially-licensed greener future, one of the biggest challenges of the next decade is to improve our ability to predict subsurface geology. For example, the mine of the future must have a reduced footprint and economic, socially-accepted mineral resource discoveries will depend on how well we are able to characterise the subsurface geology. This requires the ability to probabilistically forecast sub-surface geology, allowing for rapid model updates.

We present the current state of the Loop project, an open-source interoperable, integrative, probabilistic 3D geological modelling platform. Map2loop is a library that automatically extracts geological information from maps and generates parameters for the modelling library. In LoopStructural, we have defined a parameterisation of 3D geological models in a forward modelling sense. LoopStructural is based on the concept of the structural frame: a coordinate system defined for each object (faults, intrusions) or geological events (folding). These coordinate systems consist of 3 perpendicular scalar fields that are interpolated and fitted to data in 3D and then combined according to the geological history. The structural frames are conformable conformable to layering throughout the models. We present the concept for LoopResources, our proposed property modelling library. Using this deformed cartesian coordinate system, we propose to adapt geostatistical and interpolation methods to curvilinear coordinate systems using classical XYZ-UVW transformations. This will ensure that lithological anisotropies are enforced during resource estimation and property modelling to provide better digital twins of the subsurface and characterise geological uncertainty throughout the entire workflow.