British Columbia Geological Survey senior geomatics geoscientist Yao Cui said the body was shifting towards viewing and improving digital capabilities and using knowledge engineering to advance understanding of mineral systems in the province.

"We will build a new website, to make it easier to submit assessment reports," he told the session.

"Another example is the drillhole data, not yet ready for prime-time, but stay tuned for a data release later this year."

He also said the BCGS was demonstrating its current digital capabilities allowed it to create open standard compliant and interoperable data services.

"It won't take much more effort for us to join a Canada-wide geoscience information network, when it is available in the future," Cui said.

"We would like to expand this with other data sets.

"We are currently working on a pilot mineral potential modelling project to support land use planning in the regions, using analytics and machine learning techniques."

The pilot project was in northwest BC and still in progress, he said in the accompanying online Q&A, with the 89th annual convention being held virtually this year.

Cui pointed out the BCGS was no stranger to going digital and had started a digital compilation in the 1980s of bedrock geology, mineral occurrences and geochemical surveys.

"In the last decade, we have developed a geospatial frame data model," he added.

Some C$423 million was spent on mineral exploration in British Columbia in 2020, $93.2 million more than was spent in 2019, according to the BCGS.

The mining sector was a key component of the province's economy and the forecast mining production value in 2020 was $9.28 billion, Cui said.