Journal of Earth Science, Vol. 32, No. 2, p.

288–292, April 2021 ISSN 1674-487X

Printed in China
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-020-1399-2

How Deep Learning Networks could be Designed to Locate

Mineral Deposits
Donald A. Singer *
10191 N. Blaney Ave., Cupertino 95014, CA USA
Donald A. Singer: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1000-5297

ABSTRACT: Whether using a shallow neural network with one hidden layer, or a deep network with
many hidden layers, the training data must represent subgroups of the deposit type being explored to be
useful. Published examples of neural networks have mostly been limited to one individual mineral deposit
for training. Variation of geologic features among deposits within a type are so large that a single deposit
cannot provide proper information to train a neural net to generalize and guide exploration for other
deposits. Models trained with only one deposit tend to be academic successes but are not of practical value
in exploration for other deposits. This is why it takes much experience examining many deposits to
properly train an economic geologist—a neural network is not any different. Two examples of shallow
neural networks are used to demonstrate the power of neural networks to possibly locate undiscovered
deposits and to provide some suggestions of how to deal with missing data. The training data needs to
include information spatially related to known deposits and hopefully information from many different
deposits of the type. Lessons learned from these and other examples point to a proposed sampling plan for
data that could lead to a generalized neural network for exploration. In this plan, 10 or more well-explored
gold-rich porphyry copper deposits from around the world with 100 or more sample sites near and some
distance from each deposit would probably capture important variability among such deposits and provide
proper data to train and test a shallow neural network to predict locations of undiscovered deposits.
KEY WORDS: porphyry copper, training neural networks, missing observations.

0 INTRODUCTION
Successful economic geologists commonly require many
years of experience examining many different deposits. This is
due to the wide variability of features of mineral deposits even
of the same type. Having a tool such as a neural network that
could complement the economic geologist would be welcome.
A fundamental problem is to determine how to properly train a
neural network for this task so that it could learn the patterns like
experienced economic geologists.
Zoning of geochemistry, geophysics, alteration and associ-
ated mineral deposits have been well documented for individual
deposits and in generalizations in mineral deposit models (Cox
and Singer, 1986). It is often difficult to use this information in
exploration due to the fact that the spatial information typically
is specific for individual deposits and even deposits of a specific
type vary considerably in details of geologic ages, rock types
and local information available. Local host rocks often affect
alteration patterns, spatially associated deposits, and geo chemi-
cal zoning. An additional problem is that much exploration in-
terest is for partially or completely concealed mineral deposits.
*Corresponding author: singer.finder@comcast.net
© China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and Springer-Verlag
GmbH Germany, Part of Springer Nature 2021
Manuscript received November 22, 2020.
Manuscript accepted December 22, 2020.
In practical terms there are two key problems, (1) it is not clear
how to integrate diverse complex information when some of the
information is missing, and (2) typically there are too few well-
studied deposits in the region of interest.
Here some possible answers to these two problems are pre-
sented. First, an overview is presented of recent advances in deep
learning and neural networks that have demonstrated remarkable
abilities to recognize patterns with large quantities of data. Fol-
lowing this, two simple examples of neural networks are used to
illustrate some of the possibilities. Next, some ways are pre-
sented in which appropriate data could be collected and properly
prepared for learning to address the key problems.
1 DEEP LEARNING NETWORKS
Geologists and prospectors have long recognized patterns
that helped them discover mineral deposits. Successful geolo-
gists typically had extensive experience by seeing many deposits
which helped them recognize many of the patterns. Such experi-
ence has been difficult to obtain even over many years. Modern
exploration frequently must now deal with concealed deposits
for which patterns recognized in exposed deposits might not be
observable. Where the patterns have been observed, statistical
tools such as discriminate analysis, logistic regression, and
Bayesian methods have extended the ability of geologists in their
searches.
In 1986 a publication by Rumelhart and others opened up
the new field of neural networks. The most widely used was

Singer, D. A., 2021. How Deep Learning Networks could be Designed to Locate Mineral Deposits. Journal of Earth Science, 32(2):
288–292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-020-1399-2. http://en.earth-science.net
How Deep Learning Networks could be Designed to Locate Mineral Deposits 289

called a multiple-layer feedforward network. Simply put, a neu-
ral network is a set of input information that is passed into an
internal processing system which produces a set out output val-
ues. The most recognized form of network can be shown as a set
of inputs (the input layer), a hidden layer with numerous neurons
(processing units) and an output layer with one or more output
neurons (Fig. 1). Neurons in every layer feed into every neuron
in next layer above. Networks learn weights to the connections
between neurons that are adjusted to meet a measure of error for
the output. The shallow network shown on the left of Fig. 1 has
been found to be quite powerful at integrating information for
classification, noise reduction, and prediction (Masters, 1993).
The successes of and the difficulty of training networks
with more than two hidden layers led to widespread use of shal-
low neural networks. As models of the power of the human
brain, they only failed with complex images and patterns that
humans excelled at. They also failed to mimic the human brain
in the computational structure of deep layers. A major break-
through was made in 2006 when Geoffrey Hinton and others
published a paper showing how multiple hidden layers with few
hidden neurons per layer (Fig. 1) could be solved. This seminal
paper provided the basis for what is now called deep networks.
The power of these networks led to breakthroughs in image and
speech recognition and are now widely used in many disciplines
(Masters, 2016). Two examples of the use of shallow single hid-
den layer networks are provided in the next section.
successful applications of any neural network for exploration.
The first example is from an attempt to test the power of neural
networks to locate deposits whereas the second example repre-
sents a test of what might be possible with the correct kinds of
information.
An early study of neural networks in exploration used a
multiple-layer feedforward network to predict possible locations
of undiscovered mineral deposits (Singer and Kouda, 1996). The
goal was to locate possible kuroko massive sulfide deposits us-
ing the data from 20 years of drilling in the largely concealed
Hokuroku District of Japan (Fig. 2). The data used were from X-
ray analyses of gypsum, sericite and pyrite in 152 drill holes in
the approximately 40×40 km2 district. Average amounts per hole
of pyrite, sericite, and gypsum plus anhydrite as measured by X-
rays in 69 drill holes were used to train the net. Mainly drill holes
near and between the Fukazawa, Furutobe, and Shakanai mines

2 TWO SIMPLE EXAMPLES

Examples of the use of shallow neural networks are used
here to demonstrate the power of shallow neural networks and Figure 1. Subset of connections in a shallow network and deep network. Neurons
to provide some indications of what needs to be considered in in every layer feed into every neuron in next layer above (after Masters, 2016).

Figure 2. Neural network output in the Hokuroku district, Japan. Based on X-ray data of gypsum, sericite, and pyrite in drill holes. One hidden layer, 5 neurons
(from Singer and Kouda, 1996).
290 Donald A. Singer

were used to train the network with the output neuron being the
logarithm of distance to a deposit. Five neurons were used in the
hidden layer. The training data were selected carefully to repre-
sent well-explored areas where confidence of the distance to ore
was assured. The validation consisted of testing the trained net-
work on the total available dataset, including the 69 drill holes
used for training. The network succeeded in identifying all
known deposits and pointed to an area in the northeast part of the
District where an independently discovered a kuroko deposit had
been found (Fig. 2). Such drill hole data is not commonly avail-
able in exploration for mineral deposits in concealed settings, so
the nature of the data limited the network’s applicability else-
where. In addition, the training of the network was mostly based
on one deposit which limits their application for other deposits
even of the same type.
Commonly in exploration for undiscovered deposits, the in-
formation that might be useful is widely scattered and often some
samples contain missing data for some of the variables. To test
one way to deal with missing information, an artificial example
of 800 points was generated with three kinds of alteration and a
geophysical variable. The alteration was assumed to be zoned
around the deposit but with some irregularities. The alteration
variables were coded as 1 if present in the sample, -1 if not pre-
sent, and 0 if no information was available on alteration such as
when the sample was located where possible altered rocks were
covered by younger sediments. The geophysical variable was
available in all samples and had higher values in an annulus
around the deposit. All simulated data were located in X-Y space
in kilometers from the center of the deposit. A probabilistic neu-
ral network (Masters, 1993) was trained on a randomly selected
subset of 360 points into one of four distance classes of 0–1 km,
1–3, 3–5 and 5–10+ km (Table 1). The rows in Table 1 that have
0 for all three alteration variables represent samples located
where rocks that could have been altered were covered—that is
no alteration could have been observed even if it existed.
Figure 3 shows roughly contoured distances of the output
of the probabilistic neural network using both training and test
samples. The plot demonstrates that samples with some missing
variables can be coded so that they can be used to point to the
location of a mineral deposit. With only 360 training points this
shallow neural network was powerful enough to learn reasonable
estimates of distance to a deposit.
These two examples show both the power of even shallow
neural networks and point to some significant issues that need to
be addressed in order for these networks to successfully gener-
alize for discovering new mineral deposits.
3 ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED
The wide variability of mineral deposits even of the same
type is unlikely to be recognized and learned by a machine any
more than it is by an economic geologist studying only one or
two deposits. For one example, gold-rich porphyry copper de-
posits tend to be spatially associated with certain kinds of gold
deposits which are not found near molybdenum-rich porphyry
copper deposits. Yet published studies of neural networks appli-
cations on porphyry copper deposits have typically been based
only on one deposit.
So, the most important key to generalizing a neural network
system to guide exploration for any deposit type would be to
train it with a variety of deposits from different areas of the type
of interest. A neural network for exploring for porphyry copper
deposits can serve as an example of the how training and testing
data could be gathered so that the resulting model would be gen-
eralized.
A suggested data set of at least 10 porphyry copper deposits
from around the world with perhaps 100 or more sample sites near
and some distance away from each deposit would probably cap-
ture most of the variability among such deposits. Because gold-
rich porphyry copper deposits may have different geophysical and
other features than molybdenum-rich deposits, the tests should
probably be done on the more common gold- to intermediate-
porphyry copper deposits in order to reduce the learning complex-
ities. The samples would represent information already gathered
and recorded as distance from the center of the deposit. Clearly the
measures need to be of the sort commonly recorded in public re-
ports. Previous studies demonstrate that there are numerous varia-
bles capture the geochemical zoning patterns such as around these
deposits for example (Cooke and others, 2015; Cameron and oth-
ers, 2004). As suggested in the above example, potassic, sericite,
advance argillic alteration have spatial patterns around porphyry
copper deposits with the pyrite-bearing alteration typically wide-
spread (Sillitoe, 2010; Singer and others, 2008). Magnetic anoma-
lies vary by subtype of porphyry copper deposit and could be use-
ful for covered areas (Abedi and Norouzi, 2012).

Table 1 Example input and output of three alteration and one geophysical variables. X and Y are distances of sample in km from deposit, Group is distance
group, PNN INPUT is the input alteration and geophysical variables. PNN OUTPUT are the probabilistic neural network probabilities and the median distances

PNN INPUT PNN OUTPUT PROB. PNN PNN

X Y Dist. Group Alt1 Alt2 Alt3 Geoph. Gp1 Gp2 Gp3 Gp4 Group Distance
0.88 0.32 0.94 1 1 -1 -1 0.305 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1 0.5
2.45 1.63 2.95 2 -1 1 -1 0.689 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 2 2
2.18 -0.96 2.38 2 0 0 0 0.727 0.21 0.35 0.08 0.35 4 8
-0.94 3.06 3.20 3 -1 -1 1 1.129 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 3 4
2.38 2.85 3.72 3 0 0 0 1.495 0.00 0.54 0.41 0.05 2 2
-1.68 4.63 4.93 3 -1 -1 1 1.402 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 3 4
4.94 0.72 4.99 3 0 0 0 1.902 0.00 0.14 0.85 0.00 3 4
6.82 1.55 6.99 4 0 0 0 0.865 0.10 0.47 0.13 0.30 2 2
2.82 4.42 5.25 4 -1 -1 -1 0.675 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 4 8
How Deep Learning Networks could be Designed to Locate Mineral Deposits
Figure 3. Contours of maximum estimated probability distance classes to center of deposit from 800 artificial samples of geophysics and alteration around a
porphyry copper deposit.
An important variable that seems to not have been used is
the spatial patterns of associated kinds of mineral deposits and
prospects. For example, in settings where carbonate rocks are
present, Cu-Au skarns are typically within 2 km of porphyry
copper deposits and replacement bodies are more distant at 2–7
km such as near Bingham, United States where sediment-hosted
and placer gold were also present. Near gold-rich porphyry cop-
per deposits high-sulfidation epithermal gold deposits can occur
within about 2 km and low-sulfidation epithermal gold deposits
more distant such as near Far Southeast, Philippines. Where car-
bonate rocks are not present, polymetallic veins are often periph-
eral to porphyry copper deposits such as near Dexing, China (Sil-
litoe, 2010; Singer and others, 2008).
There is widespread evidence that, at least for porphyry
copper deposits, many variables are known to have strong spatial
patterns that would be helpful for use in neural networks. Spatial
information gathered from at least 10 porphyry copper deposits
should provide a powerful set of data to train and test a neural
network. It is possible that a shallow network would be all that
is needed for satisfactory predictions. But if more power is
needed, a deep network would certainly integrate this infor-
mation into a successful predictor of the possible locations of
undiscovered porphyry copper deposits even in concealed set-
tings.
291
4 CONCLUSIONS
Deep learning neural networks have shown their power in
their ability to deal with complex systems to make predictions.
Even shallow networks have a history of successful integration
of diverse information for classification and predictions. At-
tempts to use these methods for mineral exploration have shown
their power but have not been shown to be able to generalize to
predict locations of undiscovered deposits primarily due to train-
ing being limited to one deposit only. The considerable variabil-
ity of geologic patterns around deposits of the same deposit type
is the reason it takes economic geologists years of study to be
competent and why neural networks need to be trained differ-
ently than they have been in the past. For neural networks to be
successful mineral exploration tools they must learn from the
same breadth of deposits that train successful economic geolo-
gists.
There are two key problems, (1) it is not clear how to inte-
grate diverse complex information when some of the information
is missing, and (2) typically there are too few well-studied de-
posits of the type of interest in the region of interest. For
presence-absence variables such as alteration types or spatially
associated deposits, a simple coding of 1 for present, -1 for ab-
sent, and 0 for not measured seems to work in neural networks.
For continuous variables the coding for missing observation
292
needs to provide a neutral response for missing data.
For the second issue of too few well-studied deposits avail-
able to represent the variety of geologic attributes that exist
within a deposit type, it is necessary to train the network with
many deposits from around the world. The network must learn
from the same breadth of deposits that train successful economic
geologists. A proposal is made here to gather a data set of 10 or
more porphyry copper deposits from around the world with per-
haps 100 or more sample sites near and away from each deposit
would probably capture most of the variability among such de-
posits and provide the proper data to train a shallow neural net-
work. The samples would represent information already gath-
ered and recorded as distance from the center of the deposit.
Clearly, the measures need to be of the sort commonly recorded
in public reports. The proposed spatial information gathered
from at least 10 gold-rich porphyry copper deposits should pro-
vide a powerful set of data to train and independently test a neu-
ral network. Based on the examples shown here, powerful deep
neural networks that typically use thousands of data points to
train to recognize patterns in images are probably not needed to
the solve these exploration problems. Shallow neural networks
with a relatively low number of training points and proper data
preparation are likely to have enough predictive power for these
problems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks go to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for
their constructive comments. The final publication is available at
Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-020-1399-2.
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