I’m competing solo and looking for one teammate with a geoscience background, ideally someone who has mapped Quaternary faults or scarps on lidar in Nevada or the Walker Lane.
Where I am: a working end-to-end pipeline (20 m lidar-derivative U-Net ensembles, a validation set built from public expert lidar fault picks, calibrated submissions), currently around rank 8 with a public score of 0.157. The modelling and engineering side is covered.
What I’m missing is geological judgment:
reviewing the model’s top-ranked candidate faults and telling real scarps from look-alikes (paleo-shorelines, fan edges, canals, roads)
marking a few hundred additional scarps and look-alikes to sharpen training
helping with the geologic narrative the winners have to submit, and with the expert-review round
Time: a few hours a week through early December. Any prize would be shared under terms we agree up front. The rules encourage data science plus geoscience teams, so this is exactly what the organizers hope for.
If that sounds interesting, reply here or message me. Happy to show results before you decide.
I saw your post about looking for a geologist to join your GEMS Prize team.
I’m Prof. Michael Spevak, an engineering geologist and founder of GeoHome / AI-GeoHome. Your description caught my attention because the geological validation side is very close to our work.
I could potentially contribute to reviewing candidate faults, distinguishing geological structures from geomorphic or anthropogenic look-alikes, cross-checking interpretations against available geological and hydrogeological evidence, and helping with the geological narrative and expert-review stage.
I am based in Israel, so I have also contacted the GEMS organizers to clarify the permitted role of an international collaborator in a U.S.-led team.
If you are interested, I would be glad to see some of your current results and have a short call to understand where geological input would add the most value.
Best regards,
Prof. Michael Spevak
Founder, GeoHome / AI-GeoHome
Hi Prof. Spevak, thank you for reaching out, your background is a strong fit. One thing we need to settle first: the organizers confirmed (forum thread 11540) that the Official Rules take precedence, so every team member must be legally authorized to work in the United States, and anyone contributing to the solution must be a registered team member. Do you hold U.S. citizenship, permanent residency, or other U.S. work authorization? If so, I’d be glad to set something up and share where geological review would help most. If not, I’m afraid the rules don’t allow us to work together on this one, but I appreciate the offer.
Thank you for the clarification and for your kind words. I have reviewed Section 1.3 of the official GEMS Prize rules. I cannot currently confirm that I meet the U.S. work-authorization requirement, so I will not register as a team member or contribute to the competition solution.
I have asked the prize administrators whether any independent, general geological discussion outside the competition is permissible without informing a submission. Until they clarify the boundary, I will refrain from discussing your model or competition work. I appreciate your careful approach and wish you success with the challenge.