Sequential efficacy of information for optimized geophysical and drilling strategies in mineral exploration

SUMMARY The global energy transition has created an urgent need for expanded critical mineral supply. Projected production from existing deposits and current discovery rates remains insufficient to meet this demand. More efficient exploration strategies are therefore required, particularly in optimizing costly and low-success-rate data acquisition campaigns. To address this challenge, we introduce the concept of sequential efficacy of information (sequential EOI), a decision-making metric that quantifies the uncertainty reduction of target variables under proposed exploration action sequences. Unlike value of information, sequential EOI operates in the domain of uncertainty reduction, removing the need for an economic model that is rarely available in early-stage exploration. We demonstrate the framework using synthetic 2-D and more realistic 3-D porphyry copper systems, evaluating sequential combinations of exploration plans including ambient noise tomography surveys and borehole drilling campaigns. In both cases, sequential EOI identified exploration plans that maximized the uncertainty reduction to the target variables. These results demonstrate that sequential EOI offers a principled framework for multiphysics, multistep and uncertainty-driven plan optimization in mineral exploration, providing exploration teams with a practical and scalable decision-analytic tool for rational campaign design without requiring economic assumptions.