The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada’s Exploration Assessment Digital Data Formats (EADDF) project outlines a standard set of guidelines for the submittal of data in a digital format. The guidelines hope to streamline digital data submission on a national scale.

Without exploration success, there’ll be no discoveries of deposits, some of which eventually become the mines of tomorrow. Canada’s return on exploration investment was only 0.77 for every dollar spent between 2005 and 2014, while Australia’s was 0.97. This question of discovery performance is a technical one. There are many variables affecting the discovery performance of companies exploring in Canada, including the greater costs of exploration at depth and in remote areas. However, one key variable affecting discovery performance is the availability of geoscience information to assist with land acquisition and targeting decisions.

Improvements to geoscience data can positively impact discovery rates. Canadian jurisdictions have a wide range of requirements for submitting digital data in exchange for assessment credits. No jurisdictions require metadata to be submitted, or specify any minimal standards for data submission such as what table and field names should be included and how metadata should be organized. For subsequent users of the assessment data, integrating data embedded in PDF files with existing exploration databases is difficult and time consuming. The EADDF guidelines, if adopted, will facilitate the submission of assessment data in digital form with hopes of improving data sharing, exploration efficiency and discovery rates.