Century of Data Spatial data infrastructure created by world’s leading gold company By Matthew DeMeritt, Esri Writer As the largest gold mining company in the world, much of Barrick’s stock market value depends on its reserve base (i.e., gold proven to be minable but not yet mined). With annual gold production of nearly 8 million ounces, Barrick must add at least that much gold to its reserve base each year or its stock market value will decline. Consequently, Barrick’s geological data directly affects the company’s bottom line. Impressive Shelf Life Geologic data has an unusually long life cycle. Because ore-forming processes act over millions or tens of millions of years, data collected decades ago is still relevant to any mining company. Barrick has more than a quarter century of self-collected and purchased data as well as more than 100 years’ worth of data inherited from acquired companies. Effectively managing this rapidly growing collection of geology, geochemistry, geophysics, and remotely sensed data is crucial. To make best use of its impressive data archives, Barrick recently began an initiative to better organize and serve its data throughout the company, and a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) was born. Within a mining company, different departments often have data that other groups can use. At Barrick, when surveyors collect as-built data for a mine site, that data can be of interest to the Mine Geology, Security, Health and Safety, and Exploration groups. An SDI simplifies the way spatial data is disseminated and accessed throughout an organization. “Although our vast store of exploration data was the catalyst for the initiative, the project grew to include Environment, Land, Security, and Health and Safety [groups],” said Iain Allen, global spatial data systems coordinator for Barrick. “Making every group’s data available to everyone else eliminates the likelihood of duplicate data collection and/or purchasing.” 20 ArcUser Summer 2010 Organizing a The Migraine of Fine Grain The crucial first step in creating an easily searched data catalog is generating metadata for each dataset. However, as anyone who has created metadata knows, the devil is in the details. “Everything depends on metadata, but no one likes to do metadata,” laughed Allen. “We use a custom metadata editor, MetaTools 5, by Peter Barrs of Data Arterial in Stanthorpe, Australia, which runs in ArcMap as well as ArcCatalog.” Barrick standardized on 14 mandatory metadata elements and four optional ones. “We do not have dedicated data managers, so we depend on the end user for metadata. If it’s too tedious, they won’t do it. We tried to find a balance between everything we would like to know about a dataset and what we could realistically expect people to do.” The Barrick metadata editor uses pick lists for every metadata attribute. The pick lists automatically sync with a server-based Master Keyword Database every time the editor opens, ensuring everyone always has the most current set of keywords. Adding new keywords is done through a Web form, which adds them to the master database. The editor also facilitates the copying of metadata. Working in ArcMap, where the datasets typically have many common metadata attributes, can greatly speed metadata creation. The user completes all the common metadata elements for one dataset, copies them to all the other datasets, then completes the one or two remaining variable elements individually. Publish or Perish Detailed metadata is worthless if the data can’t be queried and accessed. To publish the data, Barrick uses MXD Publisher, created to Barrick specifications by NGIS in Australia. MXD Publisher, which will not allow data www.esri.com