Since its launch in 2016, mining firms, governments, researchers and stakeholders from more than 35 countries have visited the Botswana geoscience portal, downloading approximately 2 000 multi-disciplinary datasets.
According to a Mining Review report, the portal (which holds around 10 GB of pre-competitive geoscience data) was developed to promote and stimulate exploration activity in Botswana’s Ngamiland region. It is also expected to help attract new investment in resource exploration, improve transparency and encourage collaboration between government, industry and the public.
The portal is the result of a collaborative partnership between the Botswana Geoscience Institute (BGI), the mineral resource industry and software development company Geosoft.
‘Raw geoscientific data is critical in the mineral industry because people can manipulate it in such a way that it brings out features that they need,’ according to Tiyapo Hudson Ngwisanyi, CEO of the BGI.
Australia, Botswana, South Africa, the UK and Canada have downloaded the most data from the portal. Most popular among those downloads are raw geophysical and geochemical datasets.
