# Enhancing Lithological Mapping with Spatially Constrained Bayesian Network (SCB-Net): An Approach for Field Data-Constrained Predictions with Uncertainty Evaluation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.20195 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.20195/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 23 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Mar 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Dropout as a Bayesian Approximation: Representing Model Uncertainty in Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02142/) (2015)
- [Attention U-Net: Learning Where to Look for the Pancreas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.03999/) (2018)
- [DropBlock: A regularization method for convolutional networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.12890/) (2018)
- [W-Net: A Deep Model for Fully Unsupervised Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.08506/) (2017)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Geological maps are an extremely valuable source of information for the Earth sciences. They provide insights into mineral exploration, vulnerability to natural hazards, and many other applications. These maps are created using numerical or conceptual models that use geological observations to extrapolate data. Geostatistical techniques have traditionally been used to generate reliable predictions that take into account the spatial patterns inherent in the data. However, as the number of auxiliary variables increases, these methods become more labor-intensive. Additionally, traditional machine learning methods often struggle with spatially correlated data and extracting valuable non-linear information from geoscientific datasets. To address these limitations, a new architecture called the Spatially Constrained Bayesian Network (SCB-Net) has been developed. The SCB-Net aims to effectively exploit the information from auxiliary variables while producing spatially constrained predictions. It is made up of two parts, the first part focuses on learning underlying patterns in the auxiliary variables while the second part integrates ground-truth data and the learned embeddings from the first part. Moreover, to assess model uncertainty, a technique called Monte Carlo dropout is used as a Bayesian approximation. The SCB-Net has been applied to two selected areas in northern Quebec, Canada, and has demonstrated its potential in generating field-data-constrained lithological maps while allowing assessment of prediction uncertainty for decision-making. This study highlights the promising advancements of deep neural networks in geostatistics, particularly in handling complex spatial feature learning tasks, leading to improved spatial information techniques.