Research and application of convolutional neural network in mining area prediction

Cobalt-rich crusted deposits are found all over the world’s oceans, and their distribution is closely related to the submarine topography. The determination of crusting area is the basic work for the exploration and mining of these deposits. Many factors affect the accumulation of crusts, and topography is a crucial factor. Mineralization forecast requires comprehensive consideration of geological background and experts’ views and opinions, the prior knowledge of prospectors is the biggest factor affecting the results. In the course of ocean research, especially with the rapid development of space information technology, a huge amount of ocean data that cover about 70% of the total surface area have been accumulated rapidly; how to extract valuable information from large, fast, complex, and multisource data has become a hot topic in current ocean research. Machine learning- and deep learning-related research methods can read feature signs from mineral data to obtain existing mineral knowledge to further serve mine prediction work. Based on the study of terrain features of cobalt-rich crust in high-producing areas, the numerical matrix of altitude of 1 km² ocean surface was obtained, with the geographical coordinates of cobalt-rich crust sites as the center. Using the analysis method of convolutional neural network, the numerical matrix is trained to learn regional features such as slope and flatness and to distinguish the cobalt-rich crust–crust site topography from other submarine topography. According to the training model, the high-producing cobalt-rich crusting area was predicted and better forecasting value is obtained. Meanwhile, the accuracy of the selection of crusting target area was improved by combining the influence of other factors.