Knight, R.H., Lane, R.G., Ross, H.J., Abraham, A.P.G. and Cowan, E.J., 2007, Implicit Ore Delineation. In: Proceedings of Exploration 07:Fifth Decennial Conference on Mineral Exploration (Editor B. Milkereit), p. 1165-1169. (PDF, 0.3MB).
This paper was the first to compare the construction of a fold-shaped vein located in an antiform closure using Leapfrog's implicit method of modelling with the more familiar hand digitisation. This research led to the development of the vein modelling method in Leapfrog, which is used by many companies around the world today as part of the resource modelling workflow.
This first description of the revolutionary implicit drawing tool is decribed in this paper. Unlike all other drawing tools used in CAD programs and mine planning software, Leapfrog's drawing tool does not require polylines to tie between sectional polylines. In fact polylines do not have to be digitised in sections and do not have to be touching each other to result in a solid model. It is the first purpose-built geological drawing tool.
Cowan, E.J., Beatson, R.K., Ross, H.J., Fright, W.R., McLennan, T.J., Evans, T.R., Carr, J.C., Lane, R.G., Bright, D.V.,Gillman, A.J., Oshust, P.A. and Titley, M., 2003, Practical Implicit Geological Modelling,
Fifth International Mining Geology Conference Proceedings (Editor, S. Dominy). AusIMM Publication Series
No 8/2003, p. 89–99. Reproduced with the permission of Australian
Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. (PDF, 6MB).
One of the first papers on implicit modelling applied to geological modelling of drillhole data. It was the first time the mining audience got a glimpse of what Leapfrog was able to do, yet in 2003 we had just started our journey. BHP Diamonds in Canada enthusiastically took up Leapfrog to model their kimberlite pipes (Figure 4), and lithological modelling, as depicted in figure 6, was still at its infancy, but after 8 years since the publication the method is now a daily reality for many companies around the world.
Cowan, E.J., Beatson, R.K., Fright, W.R., McLennan, T.J. and Mitchell, T.J., 2002, Rapid Geological Modelling: Applied Structural Geology for Mineral Exploration and Mining International Symposium Abstract Volume (Ed. S. Vearncombe) Australian Institute of Geoscientists Bulletin, 36: 39-4. Proceedings of the International Structural Conference held in Kalgoorlie Western Australia, 23–25 September 2002. Extended abstract (extended from the original abstract with coloured figures from the poster). (PDF, 5MB).
This paper was the first of the research results obtained from client trials that involved New Hampton Gold (later taken over by Harmony Gold). Gold isosurface model shown in Figure 2 was constructed from the Cuddingwarra gold data. In these early days anisotropic shape imposition was still not invented, so we put up with blobs which affectionately were referred to as "Leap blob" models. Little did most know that the same interpolation results can be obtained from kriging the data with the same variogram settings. It's just that Leapfrog produced them so quickly compared to conventional kriging that the "blobs" were misunderstood to be uniquely Leapfrog, which in fact are not. In some circles, Leapfrog had (and still has) a bad reputation, when it was all a misunderstanding of the technical details.