advangeo® predicts sea floor manganese nodule resources
Successful cooperation between Beak and the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources of Germany

2nd December 2015, Hannover (Germany)

   

Beak Consultants GmbH successfully completed a project for the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources of Germany (BGR) to predict the manganese nodule coverage density on the seafloor within the German licence areas in the Pacific Ocean. By using its artificial neural network (ANN) based advangeo® Prediction Software, Beak has compiled manganese nodule coverage predictive maps in 100 meter resolution across an area of 79,400 km². As model input data, bathymetry and backscatter information of the sea floor and different derived datasets were used together with sampling point data. Based on the prediction results, mineral resources of manganese, copper, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, vanadium, titan, zinc und rare earth elements were estimated at different cut-off grades.

Figure: Predictive map of manganese nodule coverage density by using advangeo® Prediction Software (Source: BGR, 2015)

More information about the BGR project is available at
www.bgr.bund.de/EN/Themen/MarineRohstoffforschung/Projekte/Mineralische-Rohstoffe/Laufend/manganknollen-exploration_en.html?nn=1552604

In addition, please feel free to contact Dr Thomas Kuhn (BGR) or Andreas Knobloch (Beak) for more detailed information about the applied methodology.