The catchy heading to this piece is adapted from one of the talks this afternoon at the CIM conference. The presentation was by Sean Dessureault. He set out the basic principles of data mining in the mining industry and illlustrated these principles by a case history involving examination of fuel consuption at an open pit mine in Arizona. His paper is not on the conference proceedings CD; he promised the paper will appear in the CIM magazine in August. So if you are patient and are one of the very few folk who get this magazine, you will one day see the rest. For now, trust me and my opinion that his group at the University of Arizona must be at the head of the pack in a topic that I suspect will dominate mine practice in the years ahead. Because of the fascination of the topic and the ultimate unavailbility of his paper, I repeat here the abstract:

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Is it possible that one morning at a conference can represent the greater whole of the Canadian mining industry? In theory, of course not. But on reflection, I wonder. Let me tell you what happened to me this morning at the CIM conference in Montreal, and tell me if you agree that it may well be a fractal of the greater compexity called the Canadian mining industry.

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