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Known for bold thinking and embracing technology, RUA GOLD sought to prioritize high-impact drill targets within the Reefton Goldfield, a historically productive but underexplored region in New Zealand. With an extensive geological dataset — including historic drill results, geophysical surveys, and recent acquisitions — RUA GOLD’s team wanted to harness the power of this data. However, turning this data into actionable insights required more than just technical skill; it demanded an integrated and efficient approach that would inform their imminent exploration plans.
DORA, our AI-Assisted Mineral Discovery Platform was able to support RUA GOLD in using their massive data set to identify patterns that ultimately informed exploration. Using the platform, they transformed their approach, rapidly identifying and prioritizing high-potential drill targets while significantly reducing exploration risk and timeline.
The Challenge
Though the Reefton Goldfield presented significant opportunity, RUA GOLD had a few key challenges to address:
- Identifying and ranking high-potential targets within a vast land package
- Unlocking insights from thousands of historical and current data points
- Accelerating exploration workflows to optimize drilling timelines and costs
- Reducing exploration risk by leveraging AI insights validated by geological expertise
If limited to traditional methods, RUA GOLD risked spending significant resources on lower-potential targets. Further, without the desire to embrace innovation in mineral exploration, they may have also potentially overlooked hidden opportunities within their extensive land package.
The Solution
RUA GOLD utilized DORA to rapidly process over 84GB of data and more than 170,000 data points. This allowed their exploration team to:
- Prioritize the Cumberland gold camp, a site nearby the past producing Globe-Progress Mine that produced over 1 million ounces of gold
- Identify the Gallant lode — a high-grade target that was not extensively explored in the Cumberland gold camp while Gold-Progress was in operation — as a standout drill target
- Utilize AI target ranking to optimize their 2025 drilling program
- Continuously refine targets in real time as new data was integrated, increasing the probability of discovery through iteration
The Process
- Data Compilation: VRIFY's team worked with RUA GOLD to compile, clean, and standardize over 84GB of exploration data.
- AI-Assisted Feature Identification: DORA identified key geological features and patterns associated with gold mineralization across the project area, highlighting correlations that might have been missed through traditional analysis.
- Target Generation and Ranking: Using probabilistic predictive modeling, DORA generated drill targets within the Reefton Goldfield, these are then ranked and prioritized by RUA’s exploration team.
- Cumberland Gold Camp Prioritization: Through DORA’s AI analysis, Cumberland gold camp was clearly identified as an area of high-potential mineralization, and was prioritized as an area for immediate exploration focus.
- Gallant Lode Identification: Among the targets, the Gallant lode was a standout opportunity based on historical results that were validated using our AI-Assisted Mineral Discovery platform and VRIFY Prospectivity Score (VPS).
- Continuous Refinement: As new field data was collected, the RUA GOLD team was able to use DORA to continuously refine their experiments and resulting exploration models, allowing the team to optimize their approach in real-time.
The Results
By integrating VRIFY's AI-assisted insights, RUA GOLD successfully expanded and validated their 2025 exploration plans:
1. Accelerated insights:
- AI confirmed Cumberland as a top-tier target early in the process
- Rapid synthesis of historical and geophysical data reduced the time to define priority drill targets from months to minutes
- Integration of 170,000+ data points provided unprecedented geological context
2. Refined targeting:
- AI-assisted analysis validated and refined existing targets
- Precise targeting of the Gallant lode maximized the efficient allocation of resources
3. Reduced exploration risk:
- De-risked exploration by focusing resources on high-confidence targets
"Partnering with VRIFY has enabled our team to make faster, smarter decisions with DORA. AI rapidly synthesized our historical data, revealing meaningful geological patterns that would’ve taken weeks to uncover manually. We’re confident in the insights and excited to validate them in our upcoming drill program.”
Robert Eckford, CEO of RUA GOLD
Read the most recent news from RUA GOLD here.
The Future
With DORA supporting RUA GOLD's exploration plans through refined targeting and identification, RUA GOLD is now:
- Expanding drilling at Cumberland gold camp, in particular the Gallant lode target in 2025
- Continuing to integrate insights from DORA into their exploration strategy
- Confident in scaling AI-assisted exploration across their entire property portfolio
- Positioned to accelerate resource definition and potentially fast-track development timelines
- Establishing themselves as innovative technology leaders in the junior mining sector
By integrating DORA into their exploration strategy, RUA GOLD transformed a historically data-rich but underexplored goldfield into a focused, high-potential opportunity. The partnership with VRIFY and use of DORA empowered the team to move faster, smarter, and with greater confidence.
DORA, VRIFY's AI-Assisted Mineral Discovery Platform, proved instrumental in helping RUA GOLD navigate the complexities of the Reefton Goldfield, turning data challenges into exploration advantages.
Through this project, RUA GOLD showed how embracing innovation can lead to exploration breakthroughs and smarter use of resources, underscoring the transformative power of putting AI into the hands of geoscientists.
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To learn more about how AI is supporting mineral exploration processes, book a demo to see how DORA, our AI-Assisted Mineral Discovery Platform, can help make game-changing insights.
