Datarock Glossary

Glossary for terms used in Mining, Geology and the Datarock Platform.

Term	Type	Meaning

Term	Type	Meaning
Aperture	Geotechnical	Width of dark shadow region of the detected fracture when viewing a drill core sample.
Blob	Geotechnical	Segmented fracture mask used for analyses.
Box	Geotechnical	A container for rock. For core samples, the boxes usually contain multiple, parallel rows of rock. Another name for this is “tray”, but the platform uses “box” exclusively.
Broken rock	Geotechnical	Core sample that is no longer coherent rock.
Classification	Platform	A computer vision technique that analyses an image to determine whether it contains a particular feature of interest. Classification models use colour and texture to classify an image.
Core Block	Geotechnical	Any foreign material that is not rock or empty tray.
Core Sample	Platform	A cylindrical section of rock that has been extracted from the ground using a hollow steel tube.
Collar File	Platform	A file commonly used in industry to describe metadata about a collection of holes. It usually contains the start and end depth of a hole, the location of the hole, etc. The platform currently allows the upload of a “depth” file which defines the start and end depth for a single hole. We plan to move away from “depth” terminology and allow a collar file to be uploaded.
Coherent Rock	Platform	A competent cylindrical piece of core at the full width at which is was drilled, irrespective of it’s length. Rock that is consolidated/not loose.
Depth file	Platform	A CSV stating the start and end depth of a drill hole.
Depth Registration	Platform	A pipeline that determines the depth where rock came from underground, relative to the start of the drill hole. To achieve this, we run the rows through ML Models (coherent rock, incoherent rock, empty tray, and core block) and OCR and then apply some computational logic.
Dominant Colour	Geotechnical	Most frequent RGB colour (within rock), often used to classify a rock row based on colour alone.
Driller’s Break	Geotechnical	Fracture induced by the drilling process. Typically symbolised by a red 'X' on either side of the fracture in the core sample.
Empty Tray	Geotechnical	A visible portion of the bottom of the core box / tray.
Expert in the loop (EitL)	Platform	Platform feature where a customer or Operations can review and edit model results. Currently only available for Square Classification models.
Fracture	Geotechnical	A general term to include any kind of discontinuity in a body of rock if produced by mechanical rock failure, whether by shear stress or tensile stress. Fractures include faults, shears, joints, and planes of fracture cleavage.
Fracture Classes	Geotechnical	Geotechnical classes (see below for all classes) identified from the fracture classification model.
Fracture Class- Measurable	Geotechnical	A fracture that is located along a measured orientation line and can have structural measurements approximated.
Fracture Class- Displaced	Geotechnical	A fracture that either one or both pieces have dislodged/ rotated from their original position.
Fracture Class- Simple	Geotechnical	A fracture containing two pieces of core with a single break.
Fracture Class- Complex	Geotechnical	A fracture population composed of multiple intersecting fractures.
Fracture Class- Stitch	Geotechnical	A remnant mark in the image caused by stitching multiple images together.
Fracture Class- Unknown	Geotechnical	A fracture that does not meet the requirements of the other fracture classes.
Fracture Class- Discing	Geotechnical	A series of repeated, closely spaced fractures, which are in a similar orientation.
Fracture Class - Complex Broken	Geotechnical	Multiple fractures that intersect each other that do not have a jigsaw fit with larger spaces between them.
Fracture Class - Vertical Displaced	Geotechnical	A vertical fracture, with single interface, however either one or both pieces of core have dislodged/ rotated from their original position creating a physical gap between fracture edges.
Fracture Class - Vertical Measurable	Geotechnical	A vertical fracture, with single interface and clear shadow line that allows structural measurements to be automatically approximated.
Fracture Class - Horizontal Displaced	Geotechnical	A horizontal fracture, with single interface, however either one or both pieces of core have dislodged/ rotated from their original position creating a physical gap between fracture edges.
Fracture Class - Horizontal Measurable	Geotechnical	A horizontal fracture, with single interface and clear shadow line that allows structural measurements to be automatically approximated.
Fracture Class - Row End	Geotechnical	A fracture that occurs at the beginning or end of a row.
Fracture Class - Complex Jigsaw	Geotechnical	Multiple fractures that intersect each other with pieces well fitted together or slightly displaced.
Fracture Class - Complex Rubble	Geotechnical	Multiple pieces of small rocks, pebbles, fine rubble and/or powder between two pieces of core.
Fracture Type - Natural	Geotechnical	The fracture is naturally occurring in the rock, i.e. fracture not induced during or post core sample retrieval.
Fracture Type - Mechanical	Geotechnical	The fracture has been induced during or post core sample retrieval.
Fracture per metre (FPM)	Geotechnical	Count of fractures per metre.
Fracture Orientation	Geotechnical	The orientation of a fracture in situ, generally described by it’s true dip and dip direction.
Fracture Spacing (m)	Geotechnical	Distance between individual fractures per metre.
Fracture Segmentation	Geotechnical	A computer vision process that segments out the shape of the dark shadowy region of a fracture. Referred to as a ‘blob’ this is used in further fracture analysis.
Geological products	Geological	A sequence of ML models and post processing that produce a geological dataset.
Geological Strength Index (GSI)	Geotechnical	Geological Strength Index after E.Hoek (1995) and H Sonmez, R Ulusay (1999).
Geotechnical products	Geotechnical	A sequence of ML models and post processing that produce a geotechnical dataset.
Ground truth	Platform	Data logged in person, on site.
Image Metadata	Platform	The metadata included in the image file name, ideally, HOLEID_BOX#+BOX#_FROMDEPTH_TODEPTH.
Image Preparation (IP)	Platform	A pipeline that prepares images for future processing. This pipeline will extract the box(es) and then extract rows for each of the boxes from the image.
Incoherence (m)	Geotechnical	Length of incoherent rock (broken rock) in the sample interval, usually calculated over a one metre interval. Rock that is small/broken. Unconsolidated/ broken rock/ rubble.
Incoherent Rock	Platform	A geological machine learning class used to classify the contents of a core sample image. Rock that is broken, loose or not consolidated.
Joint Roughness Coefficient (JRC)	Geotechnical	Joint roughness coefficient (based on shape of intersection of fracture and core surface - proxy only).
Joint Set Analysis (JSA)	Geotechnical	Datarock’s method of analysing joints to determine joint set number in line with the Q-System, NGI (2022).
Joint Set Number (Jn)	Geotechnical	Joint set number proxy calculated in line with Grimstad and Barton (1993).
Known Depth	Platform	A point somewhere in a row that specifies the depth that rock came from underground. These points originate from depths provided on uploaded images, OCR of the uploaded images, collar files, etc. Some known depths are more trustworthy than others. Collar files are trusted, then depth files, and OCRs are treated with scepticism.
Metafiles	Platform	Associated drill core data e.g. core loss file, collar file.
Metre mark	Geotechnical	A visual marker of depth running down a hole.
Model Predictions	Platform	Raw predicted masks and classifications made by a machine learning model.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)	Platform	Optical Character Recognition, text within an image is read and converted into a machine readable text.
Orientation line	Geotechnical	The orientation line on drill cores marks the core's original position in the ground, aiding in accurately determining the orientation of geological structures in real space.
Pipeline	Platform	A series of computer processing steps that perform some operation on images. Examples of these include the image preparation and depth registration pipelines.
Pipeline Run	Platform	A single execution of a pipeline. The pipelines can be run multiple times and the results of each are recorded and stored independently.
Raw Predictions	Platform	Predicted masks and classifications made by machine learning models that have had no post processing steps applied to the predictions. Raw predictions are the precursor to ‘Used Predictions’.
Rock Quality Designation (RQD)	Geotechnical	Rock Quality Designation. A measure of rock quality that counts the pieces of rock that are ≥ 10 cm long. The measurements are made for a series of intervals (default 1m or customisable).
Row	Geotechnical	The channel or compartment of a core box that the core/ chips sit in.
RQD Predicted	Geotechnical	Rock quality designation, traditional segment length after Deere (1965).
RQD_measured	Geotechnical	Ground truth RQD data provided by the user.
RQD_wjd	Geotechnical	RQD using weighted joint density (see below) method after Sen Z. and Eissa E.A. (1991).
Rubble	Geotechnical	Small fragments of broken rock, e.g. pebbles, fine rubble and/or powder.
Segmentation	Geotechnical & Geological	A computer vision technique that analyses an image and predicts a polygon around a particular feature within the image via the use of a machine learning model.
Spacing Category	Geotechnical	Classification scheme from USBR Geology field manual.
Used Predictions	Platform	Predicted masks and classifications made by machine learning models that have been used for further analysis (example - used depth registration predictions to assist with calculating RQD). Used predictions go through post processing steps based on computational logic to confirm they are suitable for use.
Weathering Degree	Geotechnical	The degree to which the rock is weathered based on its appearance in the core image. Completely Weathered Highly Weathered Moderately Weathered Slightly Weathered Fresh
Weighted Joint Density	Geotechnical	Weighted joint density after Terzaghi (1965).