Trip to Lihir Island Papua New Guinea for Bigman Geophysical/LoKate Services co-lab
4 hours on this from Brisbane to Lihir PNG!
Scenery on the flight was fantastic.
The weather on day one…
The Missionary.
LoKate Services were requested to go to Lihir Island at the beginning of June this year. Lihir is approximately 900km NW of Port Moresby, where I was to be the on-site support for an 8-day stint tasked with: Assisting the mine’s survey team to work their way through the Bigman Geophysical online GPR course work. Assist with US Radar GPR tech-support and GPR/GNSS integration.
Then assist the mine’s survey team in beginning a large and challenging underground infrastructure locating and mapping project around the mine support infrastructure, beginning with the heavy and light maintenance building areas.
The team faces many hurdles in this endeavour not least of which is the weather. Sodden, mineral rich, coastal subsoils is not what is generally known as a GPR -friendly environment.
Add in the poor internet connectivity and the 24/7 nature and up-time requirements of the heavy mine vehicles restricting access to the sites and the amount of site prep needed before the grid scanning can commence, but they are doggedly working through these issues.
One part of the first stage of the GPR grid-scanning project. The drainage upgrade is required.
Another example of some of the stage 1 scope
The team in the fabrication workshop fashioned this GNSS antenna pole support from the pics of the LoKate Services GPR.
My last day onsite, we were able to squeeze in a result between downpours…
The team’s enthusiasm wasn’t dimmed though!
I was impressed with the resourcefulness of the team of guys and girls’ and their approach to their learning and willingness to accept our help and guidance in setting up and executing grid-scans.
It was a pleasure to work with the team in Lihir and would like to thank them for their welcome and kindness.
I hope that we can work with our friends at Bigman Geophysical again!
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