Q&A with Oleg Brovko, Senior Project Geophysicist at Geofocus

Oleg Brovko is a Senior Project Geophysicist at Geofocus, a premier provider of geophysical solutions, including surveys, consulting, and equipment rental, serving businesses across Southern, Central, and West Africa since 2010.

Oleg joined Geofocus in 2022 and has since been involved in a diverse array of geophysics projects. His expertise spans engineering applications, such as surveys for solar power stations and various industrial uses, as well as exploration projects for both greenfields and brownfields. He specializes in the acquisition, modeling, and interpretation of ground geophysical data.

Q: Hi Oleg, thank you for joining us today. To kick off this Q&A session, could you share how and when you first encountered Geoscience ANALYST?

Oleg: My involvement with Mira Geoscience dates back to GOCAD Mining Suite (GMS), which was my first introduction to their software solutions.

I initially used GMS to produce highly constrained gravity and magnetic models. About 10-15 years ago, GMS was the leading tool for integrating geological and geophysical modeling and working with various novel inversion codes like UBC-GIF and VP Suite. These codes were quite scientific, but GOCAD Mining Suite made them more accessible and easier to apply and constrain. Additionally, Mira Geoscience provided exceptional technical expertise, bridging the gap between geophysicists and the software, enabling effective application in exploration environments.

However, GOCAD Mining Suite is a very sophisticated tool. Throughout my career, I attended three to five workshops led by Mira Geoscience, mainly in Australia, taught by experts like Glenn Pears and James Reid. These workshops significantly enhanced my skills and allowed me to extract more value from the software.

When Mira Geoscience released Geoscience ANALYST, I saw it as a logical evolution from GOCAD Mining Suite. Geoscience ANALYST was more accessible, intuitive, and user-friendly. Moreover, the addition of the Python API, SimPEG, VP Suite, and connections to UBC-GIF codes made Geoscience ANALYST an even more powerful tool for geophysicists.

Q: How does your organization leverage the power of Geoscience ANALYST in your workflow?

Oleg: Our team is relatively small, with two geophysicists heavily involved in exploration projects, both of whom regularly use Geoscience ANALYST. We also have several other geophysicists focused on engineering projects, which is a different niche.

Geoscience ANALYST enhances project communication by consolidating all elements into a single, comprehensive project file, eliminating the confusion of managing multiple files. This consolidated file often includes several iterations of the model with low misfit values, allowing the client to examine different features and scenarios. Clients can easily open or ‘drag & drop’ the GEOH5 file into their workspace after installing the free viewer, enabling them to interact with the models, drillholes, and other data seamlessly.

We don’t always share projects in the GEOH5 format though; it depends on the scope. If we’re only delivering raw data without interpretation, we send the data back in its native format. However, for projects that include interpretation and drilling advice, I use Geoscience ANALYST as the repository for modeling, making it invaluable for comprehensive project delivery.

Q: What do you consider the primary advantages of working in Geoscience ANALYST?

Oleg: I appreciate the software’s flexibility in leveraging open-source inversion and modeling codes and APIs, with a low entry barrier through its intuitive interface.

In my opinion, Geoscience ANALYST is quite a unique product since it is not tied to one single coding ecosystem, like other solutions in the market are. Therefore, Geoscience ANALYST allows you to bring in and produce models leveraging inversion codes like VPmg, which is a very different approach to modeling, and also iterations of the UBC codes and SimPEG.

SimPEG is a very elegant solution to bridging the computational aspects of modeling and the way it uses octree meshes. I think Geoscience ANALYST is one of the only software packages that supports natively octree meshes to discretize the space in the inversion, allowing you to set the spatial resolution in terms of the cell size where you need it, based on the frequencies that are present in the data, which is a very efficient computational way of approaching inverse modelling.

Additionally, the Mira Geoscience team is very approachable and has developed an extensive online repository of YouTube video tutorials and website documentation on applying various SimPEG codes in Geoscience ANALYST. This repository covers almost every type of project and method, and I often refer back to these tutorials to ensure I’m using the software correctly. It can definitely get you up and running pretty quickly.

Q: If you could choose just one, what is your favorite functionality in Geoscience ANALYST?

Oleg: Outside of the modeling space, my favorite functionality is definitely the drillhole planner. It’s incredibly useful for providing interpretations to our clients, as it allows us to offer targeted recommendations based on the data. This feature greatly enhances our ability to deliver precise and actionable insights.

Q: To conclude, could you please share your thoughts on the main benefits of working with and contributing to open-source technology?

Oleg: I think it’s fantastic because it accelerates progress in the industry by leveraging the latest research for practical applications. The SimPEG team, in particular, is continuously developing and improving their codes on platforms like GitHub, giving us access to cutting-edge technology. This enables us to advance our workflows with these codes and work more efficiently.

Moreover, they are pioneering new modeling and inversion techniques that haven’t been done before. For example, SimPEG supports full tensor airborne gravity and magnetic gradiometry data inversion, which is a novel application, I think. This continuous innovation and the ability to stay at the forefront of technology are some of the primary advantages of working with and contributing to open-source projects.