Welcome to the Geologic Enhanced Mapping System (GEMS) Prize Challenge!

U.S. geothermal resources can be harnessed for power production and heating and cooling without importing fuel. One major hurdle in this process is the identification of new hidden geothermal prospects. The Geologic Enhanced Mapping System (GEMS) Prize, presented by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Geothermal, will prioritize efforts to accelerate the ongoing, detailed geologic mapping of the United States, with a focus on locating previously unknown deposits of critical minerals and geothermal resources.

The GEMS Prize seeks to address the challenge of creating an algorithm that will generate enhanced geologic fault datasets to support geologic and geophysical mapping and modeling that will assist geothermal and critical mineral studies. This work is vital to accelerate discoveries of new, commercially viable hidden geothermal systems while reducing the exploration and development risks for all geothermal resources.

The same submission is scored twice — once against a private expert-labeled test set for the Initial Prize Round, and again against an expanded label set built from expert review of all submissions for the Final Prize Round. See the competition structure section of the problem description for a full walkthrough.

How to compete

1. Click the "Compete!" button in the sidebar on the competition homepage to enroll in the competition.
2. Get familiar with the problem through the overview and problem description. You might also want to reference additional resources available on the about page.
3. Download the data from the data tab.
4. Create and train your own model. This reference solution implements a simple approach.
5. Use your model to generate predictions that match the submission format.
6. Click “Submit” in the sidebar, and then “Make new submission”. You’re in!

Competition rules

The challenge rules are in place to promote fair competition and useful solutions. If you are ever unsure whether your solution meets the competition rules, ask the challenge organizers in the competition forum or send an email to gemsprize@nlr.gov. A few key rules are highlighted below. For more details, see the official rules page.

Eligibility

Individual competitors must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Teams must have a captain who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Private entities must be incorporated in and maintain a primary place of business in the United States. Federal entities and federal employees are not eligible to participate. For more information on eligibility criteria, please refer to the official rules.

Use of test data

A unique feature of this challenge is that there is spatial overlap between the training dataset (the USGS quaternary fault dataset) and the test dataset (newly identified faults within the GeoDAWN region). For this challenge, you may use the provided set of faults for training purposes. Participants will be evaluated based on their performance predicting faults contained in a newly labeled, private set of faults.

Use of external data

The use of external data is encouraged in this competition, provided you or your team possess the necessary licenses to use the data for this challenge. For more information, see the complete rules document.

Sponsor

This challenge is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Geothermal (OG)

with additional support from the United States National Lab of the Rockies (NLR).

Images courtesy of NLR.